Rosa Parks gets a bad rap.

• Position: Law - Brief Article

After Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger --as Montgomery, Alabama, blacks were required to do in 1955--her arrest sparked a citywide bus boycott that began the civil rights movement.

Now 86, Parks is still full of fight. Last March, the civil rights pioneer sued the Atlanta-based rap group Outkast for using her name as the title of a song containing racial epithets, expletives, and sexual references. The Grammy-winning song defamed her good name, claimed Parks, who demanded $25,000 in...