Most historians say that the beginning of the modem civil rights (36) in the United States was December 1,1955. That was the day when an (37) seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama (38) to give up her bus seat to a white passenger. This brave woman Rosa parks, was (39) and fined for violating a city law. However, her (40) of defiance began a movement that ended the laws that racially segregated America. Because of this, she also became an inspiration to freedom-loving people everywhere. Rosa Parks was born on February 4,1913 in Tuskegee, Alabame. Her parents, James McCauley, a (41) , and Leona McCauley, a teacher, named her Rosa Louise McCauley. When she was two, she (42) to her grandparents’ farm in Alabama with her mother and younger (43) , Sylvester. At the age of 11, she became a student at the Montgomery Industrial School for Girls, a private school. (44) . This was consistent with Rosa’s mother’s advice to "take advantage of the opportunities, no matter how few they were." And the opportunities were few indeed. Mrs. Parks said in an interview: Back then, we didn’t have any civil rights. It was just a matter of survival, of existing from one day to the next. In the same interview, she expained that she felt fearless, (45) . This fearlessness gave her the courage to fight her conviction during the bus boycott. "I didn’t have any special fear, " (46) ."