Try to imagine yourself as Rosa Parks did when she left work that day in 1955. Exhausted from working long hours in the department store, she looked to take a seat like always; but making sure she sat in the right section of that bus at the risk of being handcuffed. You can't-can you? It took this incredible woman to refuse to give up her seat to a white man on that bus to change the course of American history.

She added, "I only knew that, as I was being arrested, that it was the very last time that I would ever ride in humiliation of this kind." U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, a Democrat "By sitting down, she was standing up for all Americans."

Farewell Rosa Parks.

Las Shawn Barber has a round up of reactions from bloggers on both sides of the aisle.