Civil Rights Pioneer Rosa Parks Dies at 92

[Greed]

Civil Rights Pioneer Rosa Parks Dies at 92
14 minutes ago

DETROIT - Rosa Lee Parks, whose refusal to give up her bus seat to a white man sparked the modern civil rights movement, died Monday. She was 92.

Mrs. Parks died at her home of natural causes, said Karen Morgan, a spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. John Conyers (news, bio, voting record), D-Mich.

Mrs. Parks was 42 when she committed an act of defiance in 1955 that was to change the course of American history and earn her the title "mother of the civil rights movement."

At that time, Jim Crow laws in place since the post-Civil War Reconstruction required separation of the races in buses, restaurants and public accommodations throughout the South, while legally sanctioned racial discrimination kept blacks out of many jobs and neighborhoods in the North.

The Montgomery, Ala., seamstress, an active member of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, was riding on a city bus Dec. 1, 1955, when a white man demanded her seat.

Mrs. Parks refused, despite rules requiring blacks to yield their seats to whites. Two black Montgomery women had been arrested earlier that year on the same charge, but Mrs. Parks was jailed. She also was fined $14.

Speaking in 1992, she said history too often maintains "that my feet were hurting and I didn't know why I refused to stand up when they told me. But the real reason of my not standing up was I felt that I had a right to be treated as any other passenger. We had endured that kind of treatment for too long."

Her arrest triggered a 381-day boycott of the bus system organized by a then little-known Baptist minister, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who later earned the Nobel Peace Prize for his work.

"At the time I was arrested I had no idea it would turn into this," Mrs. Parks said 30 years later. "It was just a day like any other day. The only thing that made it significant was that the masses of the people joined in."

The Montgomery bus boycott, which came one year after the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark declaration that separate schools for blacks and whites were "inherently unequal," marked the start of the modern civil rights movement.

The movement culminated in the 1964 federal Civil Rights Act, which banned racial discrimination in public accommodations.

After taking her public stand for civil rights, Mrs. Parks had trouble finding work in Alabama. Amid threats and harassment, she and her husband Raymond moved to Detroit in 1957. She worked as an aide in Conyers' Detroit office from 1965 until retiring Sept. 30, 1988. Raymond Parks died in 1977.

Mrs. Parks became a revered figure in Detroit, where a street and middle school were named for her and a papier-mache likeness of her was featured in the city's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Mrs. Parks said upon retiring from her job with Conyers that she wanted to devote more time to the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development. The institute, incorporated in 1987, is devoted to developing leadership among Detroit's young people and initiating them into the struggle for civil rights.

"Rosa Parks: My Story" was published in February 1992. In 1994 she brought out "Quiet Strength: The Faith, the Hope and the Heart of a Woman Who Changed a Nation," and in 1996 a collection of letters called "Dear Mrs. Parks: A Dialogue With Today's Youth."

She was among the civil rights leaders who addressed the Million Man March in October 1995.

In 1996, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded to civilians making outstanding contributions to American life. In 1999, she was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the nation's highest civilian honor.

Mrs. Parks received dozens of other awards, ranging from induction into the Alabama Academy of Honor to an NAACP Image Award for her 1999 appearance on CBS' "Touched by an Angel."

The Rosa Parks Library and Museum opened in November 2000 in Montgomery. The museum features a 1955-era bus and a video that recreates the conversation that preceded Parks' arrest.

"Are you going to stand up?" the bus driver asked.

"No," Parks answered.

"Well, by God, I'm going to have you arrested," the driver said.

"You may do that," Parks responded.

Mrs. Parks' later years were not without difficult moments.

In 1994, Mrs. Parks' home was invaded by a 28-year-old man who beat her and took $53. She was treated at a hospital and released. The man, Joseph Skipper, pleaded guilty, blaming the crime on his drug problem.

The Parks Institute struggled financially since its inception. The charity's principal activity — the annual Pathways to Freedom bus tour taking students to the sites of key events in the civil rights movement — routinely cost more money than the institute could raise.

Mrs. Parks lost a 1999 lawsuit that sought to prevent the hip-hop duo OutKast from using her name as the title of a Grammy-nominated song. In 2000, she threatened legal action against an Oklahoma man who planned to auction Internet domain name rights to http://www.rosaparks.com.

After losing the OutKast lawsuit, attorney Gregory Reed, who represented Mrs. Parks, said his client "has once again suffered the pains of exploitation." A later suit against OutKast's record company was settled out of court.

She was born Rosa Louise McCauley on Feb. 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Ala. Family illness interrupted her high school education, but after she married Raymond Parks in 1932, he encouraged her and she earned a diploma in 1934. He also inspired her to become involved in the NAACP.

Looking back in 1988, Mrs. Parks said she worried that black young people took legal equality for granted.

Older blacks, she said "have tried to shield young people from what we have suffered. And in so doing, we seem to have a more complacent attitude.

"We must double and redouble our efforts to try to say to our youth, to try to give them an inspiration, an incentive and the will to study our heritage and to know what it means to be black in America today."

At a celebration in her honor that same year, she said: "I am leaving this legacy to all of you ... to bring peace, justice, equality, love and a fulfillment of what our lives should be. Without vision, the people will perish, and without courage and inspiration, dreams will die — the dream of freedom and peace."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051025/ap_on_re_us/obit_rosa_parks

 

[Sango]

R.i.p.

 

[hustleman08]

RIP to the last real sista of the civil rights movment

 

[QueEx]

I'm surprised at how few pay their respects.

QueEx

 

[QueEx]

<font size="6"><center>First there was Claudette Colvin</font size>
<font size="4">Teenager also resisted system in 1955, but her story is less known </font size></center>

Mobile Register
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
By ROY HOFFMAN
Staff Reporter

The story of Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott cannot be fully told without Claudette Colvin, whose similar act of resistance was nearly forgotten in history's shadows.

On the day after Parks' death, Colvin, 65, who usually shies away from media attention, was willing to talk about how history viewed the two of them.

Nearly nine months before Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery bus, Colvin, a young black woman, only 15, was arrested for refusing to get out of her seat. But civil rights leaders chose Parks' case as the starting point for the bus boycott.

"The NAACP picked someone who had the personality and the character, someone who would be followed by the adults and middle class people," Colvin said from her home in the Bronx borough of New York City. "The youth probably would have followed me. The students, they knew we wanted a change."

Colvin expressed sadness at the death of Parks, who was 28 years older than Colvin: "She was a genteel lady, and she was able to help the youth out. I'm glad she took part and saw the need to help us. Her life was in helping in the fight for equality."

Colvin said that the summer after she was arrested in March 1955, she joined the NAACP Youth Council, where Parks was an adviser. "I told my story to her group."

That December, Parks made headlines when she was arrested.

Fred Gray, the civil rights attorney who represented both women, wrote in his autobiography "Bus Ride to Justice:"

"On March 2, 1955, Claudette, a 15-year-old high school student, refused to obey a bus driver's order that she relinquish her seat. She was already at the back of a bus and refused to make her seat available to a white person. When she remained seated, the bus driver called police officers, who dragged her from the bus and arrested her."

Gray represented Colvin, he wrote, "thinking this well could be the chance I had been waiting on to challenge the constitutionality of Montgomery's segregation ordinances and Alabama's segregation statues."

The Colvin case, Gray recounted, "proved a false start," but the pattern was in place.

As journalist Frye Gaillard wrote in "Cradle of Freedom: Alabama and the Movement that Changed America:"

"Colvin had cursed her tormentors as they carried her away, and the word quickly spread following her arrest that she was pregnant out of wedlock."

Reluctantly, Gaillard wrote, E.D. Nixon, the civil rights leader in Montgomery, "was compelled to conclude that this was not the symbol he was seeking."

Nixon "knew ... that Claudette Colvin was ... not serene or secure in the way of Mrs. Parks."

"I was 15 years old," Colvin said. "We were made to feel inferior. That was throughout the South," but it wasn't unique to the South. "It was segregation North, South, East and West. The only difference in the South, they had those horrible signs up there -- 'Colored' and 'White.'"

She pointed out that her involvement didn't end when she was found guilty.

She was one of the plaintiffs in the suit, Browder vs. Gayle, filed Feb. 2, 1956, that successfully challenged the constitutionality of bus segregation.

Parks, who was convicted of disorderly conduct on Dec. 5, 1955, after a 30-minute trial, was not part of the lawsuit.

As Gray explained in his book, "I did not include Rosa Parks as a plaintiff in this case because I feared a question would arise in the federal suit about whether we were trying to circumvent and enjoin the criminal prosecution of Mrs. Parks."

In addition to Colvin, the other three plaintiffs were Aurelia Browder, Susie McDonald and Mary Louise Smith. "What made the bus boycott successful," Colvin said, "was the federal lawsuit."

The boycott ended Dec. 21, 1956, 381 days after it started, one day after the written order from federal court reached Montgomery.

Colvin said she still stays in touch with Smith. Browder and McDonald have since died.

"The battle for civil rights was fought in the courts," Colvin said, "and fought in the judicial system. We were in and out of the courts."

In the aftermath of the bus boycott, Colvin did not involve herself to a large extent in the movement, she said. "I wasn't active in the demonstrations. I couldn't continue to participate in the marches. I didn't have the support to continue. If I went to jail, who would support my family?"

Still, thinking back on 1955 and the actions of Rosa Parks, Colvin said, "I was glad, and the youth was glad, that the adults were doing something to fight segregation, the Jim Crow laws.

"The social change didn't come by easy."

http://www.al.com/news/mobileregister/index.ssf?/base/news/1130318229254820.xmlcoll=3&thispage=1

 

[Greed]

I'm surprised at how few pay their respects.

QueEx

i'm not at all.

 

[Black_Immortal]

I pause to pay tribute to Rosa Parks.

 

[Greed]

Senate authorizes Rosa Parks honor in Capitol

Senate authorizes Rosa Parks honor in Capitol
1 hour, 10 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The late civil rights icon Rosa Parks will be the first woman to lie in honor in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, a tribute usually reserved for presidents, soldiers and politicians.

The U.S. Senate voted on Thursday to honor Parks and the U.S. House of Representatives is set to approve the tribute on Friday.

Parks, a black woman who helped spark the U.S. civil rights movement when she refused to give her seat on an Alabama bus to a white man 50 years ago, died on Monday at the age of 92.

"The movement that Rosa Parks helped launch changed not only our country, but the entire world, as her actions gave hope to every individual fighting for civil and human rights. We now can honor her in a way deserving of her contributions and legacy," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat.

According to the Architect of the Capitol, the Capitol Rotunda has been used for this honor only 28 times since 1852. Most recently, in 2004, the remains of President Ronald Reagan lay in state.

Other Americans so honored include Presidents Abraham Lincoln, John Kennedy, Dwight Eisenhower and Lyndon Johnson; Pierre L'Enfant, who planned the city of Washington, World War II Gen. Douglas MacArthur and the remains of several unknown soldiers.

On December 1, 1955, Parks, a 42-year-old seamstress living in the racially segregated south, boarded a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Her refusal to give up her seat led to a boycott of the city's bus system by black residents. The boycott was led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who became a central figure in the fight for equal rights for blacks during the 1960s.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051028...UJZ.3QA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

 

[QueEx]

Re: Senate authorizes Rosa Parks honor in Capitol

<font size="6"><center>Parks' legacy challenges new generation</font size></center>

By ERIN TEXEIRA
AP NATIONAL WRITER
October 25, 2005

The death of Rosa Parks underscores that the generation responsible for the key victories of the civil rights movement is fading into history, leaving its survivors with the challenge of keeping the movement's memory and work alive even as today's youth often seem disengaged.

"As people get older and people pass, it becomes more and more difficult to have that sort of firsthand knowledge" of the fight for integration, said U.S. Rep. John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat who first met Parks as a 17-year-old student and activist. "It becomes a little more difficult to pass it on."

Lewis, who once headed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, added that the social challenges of today - persistent racial gaps in poverty, education and wealth, among others - highlight the continued need for activists and teachers to honor Parks' spirit.

"Her life should inspire a generation yet unborn to stand up," he said.

Parks is one of a handful of civil rights figures, along with Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, whose name most young people seem to know.

But many are more familiar with "Rosa Parks," the hit song by the hip-hop group OutKast, than her full story, said Renada Johnson, a 25-year-old graduate student at Bowie State University in Maryland, who met Parks in 1997.

"Young people definitely know who she was, but all we were taught in school was that she didn't get up because her feet were hurting," Johnson said. "They don't know her whole story."

In 1955, Parks was a seamstress and longtime secretary for the local NAACP who defied segregation laws and refused to give up her seat in a whites-only section of a public bus in Montgomery, Ala.

Then 42, she inspired tens of thousands of working-class blacks - led by King - to boycott the local buses for more than a year. Finally, the Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that declared Montgomery's segregated seating laws unconstitutional. The effort highlighted persistent bias against blacks across the nation.

After she died Monday at age 92, Parks was remembered as a quiet woman of steely resolve, whose simple act helped spark the biggest movement for social change in American history.

"But that was 50 years ago," said Bruce Gordon, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "A lot has changed in 50 years."

Many young people either don't know civil rights history or don't know why it matters, he said. Parks, who worked to educate youth about the struggle of black people, once chuckled that children sometimes asked her if she knew Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman, former slaves who lived generations before her.

And now with the median age of African-Americans at 30, according to the Census Bureau, more than half of the nation's black community was born after the end of legally sanctioned racial discrimination.

Parents who were active in the movement say they sense a disconnect when speaking with their children.

"I remember my son once said to me, 'Why did you sit in the back of the bus? Why didn't you just go up front?' I said 'I didn't want to get killed,'" said Earl G. Graves Sr., 70, publisher of Black Enterprise Magazine. "He looked at me and blinked."

"Young people have to be reignited," he added.

Said Gordon: "It ought to renew in people the recognition that individual actions make a difference."

Lewis lamented that, in the last month, several women civil rights pioneers have died: C. Delores Tucker, the first black women to be Pennsylvania's secretary of state; Constance Baker Motley, the first black and the first woman to serve as a federal judge in the southern district of New York; and Vivian Malone Jones, who defied Alabama Gov. George Wallace as one of the first black students to enroll at the University of Alabama in 1963.

"And now Rosa Parks," he said. "It's so important for people to tell their stories over and over again."

Johnson, who teaches black history to teenagers in the Washington, D.C. area, agreed.

"We use history as our guide to help young people make better choices and better decisions," she said. Working with the Kiamsha Youth Empowerment program in Prince George's County, Md., Johnson links Parks' self-respect with choices young people today can make - to stay away from drugs and alcohol, for instance.

"You won't understand where you're going until you know where you've been," she said.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Parks_Fading_History.html

 

[Brown Pride]

I'm surprised at how few pay their respects.

QueEx

Naw Que,this was posted on the main board the day she died,at 9:01 p.m.10/25/05.Many peeps responded to that thread.


R.I.P. Mother Parks

 

[QueEx]

Re: Senate authorizes Rosa Parks honor in Capitol

Senate authorizes Rosa Parks honor in Capitol
1 hour, 10 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The late civil rights icon Rosa Parks will be the first woman to lie in honor in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, a tribute usually reserved for presidents, soldiers and politicians.

The U.S. Senate voted on Thursday to honor Parks and the U.S. House of Representatives is set to approve the tribute on Friday.

Parks, a black woman who helped spark the U.S. civil rights movement when she refused to give her seat on an Alabama bus to a white man 50 years ago, died on Monday at the age of 92.

"The movement that Rosa Parks helped launch changed not only our country, but the entire world, as her actions gave hope to every individual fighting for civil and human rights. We now can honor her in a way deserving of her contributions and legacy," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat.

According to the Architect of the Capitol, the Capitol Rotunda has been used for this honor only 28 times since 1852. Most recently, in 2004, the remains of President Ronald Reagan lay in state.

Other Americans so honored include Presidents Abraham Lincoln, John Kennedy, Dwight Eisenhower and Lyndon Johnson; Pierre L'Enfant, who planned the city of Washington, World War II Gen. Douglas MacArthur and the remains of several unknown soldiers.

On December 1, 1955, Parks, a 42-year-old seamstress living in the racially segregated south, boarded a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Her refusal to give up her seat led to a boycott of the city's bus system by black residents. The boycott was led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who became a central figure in the fight for equal rights for blacks during the 1960s.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051028...UJZ.3QA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

That idiot Michael Savage was ranting on his radio <s>show</s> <u>shit</u> last night that Rosa Parks has no business lying in state at the capitol. His reason: that honor is reserved for presidents, generals and some other high dignitary.

I tried like fuck to get through -- and was eventually glad I couldn't, arguing with that idiot would have made me what ?

<font size="4">Is it the person or the contribution to America that serves as the basis for the honor ??? </font size>

QueEx

 

[Brown Pride]

Re: Senate authorizes Rosa Parks honor in Capitol

That idiot Michael Savage was ranting on his radio <s>show</s> <u>shit</u> last night that Rosa Parks has no business lying in state at the capitol. His reason: that honor is reserved for presidents, generals and some other high dignitary.

I tried like fuck to get through -- and was eventually glad I couldn't, arguing with that idiot would have made me what ?

<font size="4">Is it the person or the contribution to America that serves as the basis for the honor ??? </font size>

QueEx

How were all them crackas responding to his rants????????

 

[thoughtone]

I wonder what Cedric the Entertainer would have to say about Mrs. Parks at her eulogy?

 

[QueEx]

[frame]http://rosaparks.org/[/frame]

 

[Jim_Browski]

QueEx=I'm surprised at how few pay their respects.

May Rosa Parks rest in peace, but I cannot grant her "legend" status for the same reason I can't grant Dr. MLK Jr. "legend" status....

They were the figure heads for the Black self-hate disease that infects Black America to this very nano-second....

As was previously stated, may Rosa Parks rest in peace

 

[QueEx]

... self hate disease, as evident in the previous post.

QueEx

 

[Jim_Browski]

... self hate disease, as evident in the previous post.

Speak clearly....

I wouldn't want to think that you were simply gossiping for the sake of gossiping....


If you have something to say to me in the same veing as my commnetary to you it would be a little better if you weren't so ambiguous in your reply....

It made me think you were calling in some imaginary "calvary"...as if I cared.

 

[QueEx]

I didn't stumble or stutter.

QueEx

 

[QueEx]

<center>

</center>

<font size="6"><center>Americans Honor Parks at Capitol Rotunda</font size></center>

Oct 31, 9:11 AM (ET)

By KEN THOMAS

WASHINGTON (AP) - More than 30,000 Americans streamed through the U.S. Capitol Rotunda to pay tribute Monday to Rosa Parks, filing by her casket in hushed awe of the woman whose defiant act on a city bus inspired the modern civil rights movement.

"I rejoice that my country recognizes that this woman changed the course of American history, that this woman became a cure for the cancer of segregation," said the Rev. Vernon Shannon, 68, pastor of John Wesley African-Methodist-Episopal Zion in Washington, one of many who rose before dawn to see the casket.

Elderly women carrying purses, young couples holding hands and small children in the arms of their parents reverently proceeded around the raised wooden casket. A Capitol Police spokeswoman, Sgt. Jessica Gissubel, said more than 30,000 passed through the Rotunda since Sunday evening, when the viewing began.

Many were overcome by emotion. Monica Grady, 47, of Greenbelt, Md., was moved to tears, she said, that Parks was "so brave at the time without really knowing the consequences" of her actions.

http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20051031/D8DJ2C8O0.html

 

[Jim_Browski]

I didn't stumble or stutter.

True....

The only drawback in you not stumbling or stuttering is that you hadn't really said anything of note...even though you said it without stumbling or stuttering.

Bang up job....

 

[QueEx]

Must have said something though ... you're still responding to it.

QueEx

 

[Jim_Browski]

Must have said something though ... you're still responding to it.

Ok...I'll allow you to chap your lips on Rosa Parks behind without any further static....

 

[QueEx]

<font size="5"><center>Congress OKs Rosa Parks Capitol Statue</font size></center>

Associated Press
Nov 18, 7:28 PM (ET)


WASHINGTON (AP) - Congress agreed Friday to place a statue of civil rights leader Rosa Parks in the Capitol's Statuary Hall.

Parks, who died Oct. 24 at age 92, refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Ala., bus in 1955 - an act of civil disobedience that helped spark the civil rights movement.

Both the House and the Senate approved by voice vote a bill placing the statue in the Capitol and sent the legislation to President Bush for his signature.

"Her statue will symbolize the nation's triumph and progression from segregation to integration, from oppression to equality and from division to union," said Rep. Jesse L. Jackson, Jr., D-Ill., a sponsor of the legislation. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., sponsored a similar measure in the Senate.

She would be the first black woman to be represented in Statuary Hall, where many states have statues honoring notable people in their history.

Parks, a former seamstress, became the first woman to lie in honor in the Capitol Rotunda, where the bodies of Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy and other national leaders have been paid tribute. Statuary Hall is next to the Rotunda.

The bill gives the Capitol Architect's office two years to obtain a statue.

---

The bill is H.R. 4145.

 

[QueEx]

<font size="5"><center>Montgomery Marks Rosa Parks Anniversary</font size></center>

A poster entitled "It All Started On A Bus," is posted on the front
seat of a New York City bus to honor Rosa Parks in New York, Dec.
1, 2005. Today marks the 50th anniversary of act of civil disobe-
dience by Rosa Parks, an African American woman who was jailed
after she refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a
segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Her action fueled the
civil rights movement and the MTA hope transit riders will sacrifice
the reserved seat as a tribute to Parks. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)


Associated Press
Dec 1, 10:08 AM (ET)


(AP) A poster entitled "It All Started On A Bus," is posted on the front seat of a New York City bus to...

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - Montgomery residents and civil rights figures held a prayer breakfast Thursday to remember Rosa Parks on the 50th anniversary of the day she made history by refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man.

All buses in Montgomery paid tribute to Parks by leaving a seat empty with a display commemorating her act. Other bus systems around the country had similar displays. Parks died Oct. 24 at age 92 in Detroit, where she and her husband had moved in 1957.

Among the day's events in Montgomery was a planned march by children to the Capitol from the site about eight blocks away where Parks was arrested on Dec. 1, 1955.

The Montgomery Improvement Association, which hosted the prayer breakfast, was the group that organized and launched the boycott of city buses four days after Parks' arrest. The yearlong boycott, led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., became a key moment in the civil rights movement.

In New York, empty seats were marked with posters of her reading, "It All Started on a Bus," and bus drivers were keeping headlights on all day.

In Philadelphia, middle school students planned to write comments about Parks on posters on the outside of a bus that would be put into regular service.

Bus tributes were also set up in Boston; Cleveland; Newark, N.J.; and Washington, D.C.

In Detroit, a federal building on Detroit's east side was being renamed for Parks in an afternoon ceremony. The resolution renaming the building was signed into law by President Bush on Nov. 11.

http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20051201/D8E7H41G2.html