Rosa Parks - Dies at age 92

MrBishop

MrBishop

Well-Known Member
Nearly 50 years ago, Rosa Parks made a simple decision that sparked a revolution. When a white man demanded she give up her seat on a Montgomery, Ala., bus, the then 42-year-old seamstress said no.

At the time, she couldn't have known it would secure her a revered place in American history. But her one small act of defiance galvanized a generation of activists, including a young Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and earned her the title "mother of the civil rights movement."

Mrs. Parks died Monday evening at her home of natural causes, with close friends by her side, said Gregory Reed, an attorney who represented her for the past 15 years. She was 92.

Monique Reynolds, 37, a native of Montgomery, Ala., called Mrs. Parks an inspiration who had lived to see the changes brought about by the civil rights movement.

"Martin Luther King never saw this, Malcolm X never saw this," said Reynolds, who now lives in Detroit. "She was able to see this and enjoy it."

In 1955, 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.

Mrs. Parks, 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.

She 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.

U.S. Rep John Conyers, in whose office Mrs. Parks worked for more than 20 years, remembered the civil rights leader as someone whose impact on the world was immeasurable, but who never sought the limelight.

"Everybody wanted to explain Rosa Parks and wanted to teach Rosa Parks, but Rosa Parks wasn't very interested in that," he said. "She wanted them to understand the government and to understand their rights and the Constitution that people are still trying to perfect today."

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick said he felt a personal tie to the civil rights icon: "She stood up by sitting down. I'm only standing here because of her."

Speaking in 1992, Mrs. Parks 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. King, 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," she 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.
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No more back of the bus
 
she is part of why one of my all time favorite quotes, to the point of it being a motto to me, is
"obedient women seldom make history"

RIP.
 
I'm old enough to remember the separate facilities --- the labeled water fountains stand out the most. I remember the black faces on the back of the bus. I remember the lunch counter partitioned off for "whites" and "colored."

Rosa Parks, you were one courageous lady. Rest In Peace.
 
Rosa Parks may 'lie in honor' at Capitol

Honor typically reserved for presidents

Thursday, October 27, 2005; Posted: 10:29 p.m. EDT (02:29 GMT)

story.parks.arrest.loc.jpg

Rosa Parks' arrest in 1955 helped spark the civil rights movement in the United States.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Black civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks would become the first woman to lie in honor in the Capitol Rotunda under resolutions considered Thursday by lawmakers.

Parks' refusal to give up her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955 led to a 381-day boycott of the city's bus system and helped spark the

modern civil rights movement. She died Monday in Detroit at age 92.
The Senate approved a resolution Thursday allowing her remains to lie in honor in the Rotunda on Sunday and Monday "so that the citizens of the United States may pay their last respects to this great American." The House was expected to consider the resolution Friday.

In most cases, only presidents, members of Congress and military commanders have been permitted to lie in the Rotunda.

Parks would be the first woman and second black American to receive the accolade. Jacob J. Chestnut, one of two Capitol police officers fatally shot in 1998, was the first black American to lie in honor, said Senate historian Richard Baker.

Parks also would be the second non-governmental official to be commemorated that way. The remains of Pierre L'Enfant -- the French-born architect who was responsible for the design of Washington, D.C. -- stopped at the Capitol in 1909 -- 84 years after his death in 1825.

The most recent person to lie in repose in the Capitol was President Reagan in 2004.

Officials with the Rosa & Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development in Detroit said at one point that Parks would lie in repose at the Lincoln Memorial. The National Park Service, however, said those plans were never formalized.

Lila Cabbil, the institute's president emeritus, said Thursday the information was released prematurely and the foundation and the Parks family were working with Reps. John Conyers and Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, D-Michigan, and the White House to make arrangements to have a viewing in Washington.

The Capitol event was one of several planned to honor the civil rights pioneer. Parks will lie in repose Saturday at the St. Paul AME Church in Montgomery, Alabama, and a memorial service will be held at the church Sunday morning.

Following her viewing in the Capitol, a memorial service was planned for Monday at St. Paul AME Church in Washington.

From Monday night until Wednesday morning, Parks will lie in repose at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit. Her funeral will be Wednesday at Greater Grace Temple Church in Detroit.

Officials in Detroit and Montgomery, Alabama, meanwhile, said the first seats of their buses would be reserved as a tribute to Parks' legacy until her funeral next week. Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick put a black ribbon Thursday on the first passenger seat of one of about 200 buses where seats will be reserved.

"We cannot do enough to pay tribute to someone who has so positively impacted the lives of millions across the world," Kilpatrick said.
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http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/10/27/parks.capitol.ap/
 
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