US civil rights icon Rosa Parks dies at 92

NEARLY 50 years ago, Rosa Parks made a simple decision that sparked a revolution. When a white man demanded she give up her seat on an Alabama, bus, the then 42-year-old seamstress said no.

At the time, she couldn’t have known it would secure her a revered place in American history. But her one small act of defiance galvanised a generation of activists, including a young Martin Luther King, and earned her the title “mother of the civil rights movement”.

Ms Parks died late on Monday at her home of natural causes, with close friends by her side, said Gregory Reed, an attorney who represented her for the past 15 years. She was 92.