She served as secretary to Edgar Nixon in Montgomery division of NAACP

Rosa Parks left Montgomery Fair, the department store where she worked, on December 1, 1955, and boarded the same bus she did every night. She sat in the "black area" in the back of the bus, as she always did. When the bus was packed, the driver told Rosa to give up her seat to a white passenger. Rosa has experienced this countless times before. The same bus driver had thrown her off the bus for the identical crime in 1943. She refused again and was detained by cops. She was penalized after being found guilty of breaking the segregation legislation.

Only after speaking with friends and family did she decide to approach the NAACP and offer to be a test case. This was a courageous act because she knew it would lead to persecution by white authorities. Parks, for example, was fired from her tailoring position at Montgomery Fair right away.

She served as secretary to Edgar Nixon in the Montgomery division of NAACPin 1943, reconnecting with her former classmate Johnnie Carr. She worked with E. D. Nixon on cases including police brutality, rape, murder, and prejudice. The Montgomery NAACP defended and hired paroled Scottsboro Boy Andy Wright in 1946. Parks attended Ella Baker's leadership training program the same year. E. D. Nixon was elected Alabama state president of the NAACP in 1947, and Parks was appointed as the first state secretary in 1948.