In Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks is jailed for refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man, a violation of the city’s racial segregation laws. The successful Montgomery Bus Boycott, organized by a young Baptist minister named Martin Luther King, Jr., followed Park’s historic act of civil disobedience. According to a Montgomery city ordinance in 1955, African Americans were required to sit at the back of public buses and were also obligated to give up those seats to white riders if the front of the bus filled up. Parks was in the first row of the black section when the white driver demanded that she give up her seat to a white man. Parks’ refusal was spontaneous but was not merely brought on by her tired feet, as is the popular legend. In fact, local civil rights leaders had been planning a challenge to Montgomery’s racist bus laws for several months, and Parks had been privy to this discussion. On November 13, 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Alabama state and Montgomery city bus segregation laws as being in violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Find Rosa Parks at the library and on hoopla.

Bette Midler, singer, songwriter, actress, comedian, and film producer, was born in Honolulu on December 1, 1945. In a career spanning almost half a century, Midler has been nominated for two Academy Awards, and won three Grammy Awards, four Golden Globes, three Emmy Awards, and a special Tony Award. She has sold over 35 million records worldwide, and has also received four Gold, three Platinum and three Multiplatinum albums by RIAA. She has released 13 studio albums as a solo artist. Throughout her career, many of her songs became hits on the record charts, including her renditions of “The Rose”, “Wind Beneath My Wings”, “Do You Wanna Dance?”, “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy”, and “From a Distance”. Midler made her motion picture debut in 1979 with The Rose, which earned her a Golden Globe and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress of 1980. In the following years she starred in a string of hit films that includes Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Outrageous Fortune, Beaches, The First Wives Club, and The Stepford Wives, as well as For the Boys and Gypsy, the latter two of which she won two further Golden Globe Awards. Find the Devine Miss M playing at the library, on hoopla and in Freegal.

Jan Brett, illustrator and writer of children’s picture books known for colorful, detailed depictions of a wide variety of animals and human cultures ranging from Scandinavia to Africa, was born in Norwell, MA on December 1, 1949.   Her best-known titles include The Mitten, The Hat, and Gingerbread Baby. She has adapted or retold numerous traditional stories such as the Gingerbread Man and Goldilocks and has illustrated some classics such as “The Owl and the Pussycat”. Link to a Jan Brett bibliography.  Find Jan Brett at the library.