But Walker remembers that Evers always questioned the Jim Crow segregation laws, even when they were kids.

NPR: The Legacy of Medgar Evers

For years before her arrest, Mrs Parks had been active with local civil rights groups, which were looking for a test case to fight the city's segregation laws.

BBC: NEWS | Americas | US civil rights icon Parks dies

Local civil rights activists were looking for a test case to challenge the bus segregation laws, and that spring lawyers considered having Ms Colvin sue the bus company.

BBC: Woman lays flowers at statue of Rosa Parks

Years before the name became synonymous with racial segregation laws, Jim Crow was a showbiz act a performance first made famous in New York City by a young white actor named Thomas D.

NPR: The Legacy of Blackface

Though Rosa Parks was not the first to confront the injustice of segregation laws, her courageous act of civil disobedience sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott -- 381 days of peaceful protest when ordinary men, women, and children sent the extraordinary message that second-class citizenship was unacceptable.

WHITEHOUSE: The White House

In 1948, South Africa adopted apartheid laws, which forced segregation by race.

NPR: Hugh Masekela at the Tanglewood Jazz Festival

He recalled how for half of his life, African-Americans like him weren't allowed to vote under the laws of Jim Crow segregation.

WSJ: For a Historic Election, an Enormous Turnout