Paterson officials gathered at Rosa L. Parks School of Fine & Performing Arts on Wednesday to proclaim Dec. 1 as Rosa Parks Day in the city.

It was 66 years ago that Parks protested Alabama’s segregation laws by refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a bus. She was then arrested, sparking the 13-month Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Parks is remembered as an icon, igniting a turning point in the U.S. civil rights movement.

“At that moment, Rosa Parks taught us a lesson in civil disobedience. The concept articulated many years before the Civil War by Henry David Thoreau, an abolitionist who said that people cannot surrender their consciences to a government’s injustice,” says Paterson Schools Superintendent Eileen Shafer.

Rosa Parks Day was created by the California State Legislature and first celebrated on her birthday – Feb. 4 – in 2000.