Jefferson City, Missouri - Gov. Jay Nixon has proclaimed Wednesday, Feb. 4, as Rosa Parks Day in Missouri to honor the famed civil rights pioneer on what would have been her 102nd birthday. A state law passed in 2006 designates that date to especially remember and honor Parks, who was born on Feb. 4, 1913 and who died in 2005.

“Sixty years ago, the act of one brave woman helped changed the course of a nation toward a more just society,” Gov. Nixon said. “There is much work that each of us can continue to do to help protect the civil rights of all Americans, and we can draw inspiration from the legacy of Rosa Parks.”

In 1955, Parks refused to obey the order of a bus driver to give up her seat to a white male passenger on a city bus in Montgomery, Ala., leading to the successful boycott of the segregated city bus system and drawing national attention. She has been described as the “Mother of the Modern Day Civil Rights Movement,” and her refusal is considered one of the key events of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.