Rosa Parks, the black woman whose 1955 protest action in Alabama marked the start of the modern US civil rights movement, has died at the age of 92. Mrs Parks’ refusal to give up her seat to a white man on a bus led to a mass boycott of buses by black people. The protest led to the desegregation of the transport system and culminated in the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which outlawed race discrimination in the US.