Rosa Parks... RIP

“I woke up to the news that Rosa Parks had passed away. At 92, she's lived a long life....and her actions during the civil rights movement did much to change the face of America....

May she rest in peace.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/10/25/parks.obit/index.html

Civil rights icon Rosa Parks dies at 92
Long known as the 'mother of the civil rights movement'

Tuesday, October 25, 2005; Posted: 4:07 a.m. EDT (08:07 GMT)

(CNN) -- Rosa Parks, whose act of civil disobedience in 1955 inspired the modern civil rights movement, died Monday in Detroit, Michigan. She was 92.

Parks' moment in history began in December 1955 when she refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama.

Her arrest triggered a 381-day boycott of the bus system by blacks that was organized by a 26-year-old Baptist minister, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (See video on an activist's life and times -- 2:52)

The boycott led to a court ruling desegregating public transportation in Montgomery, but it wasn't until the 1964 Civil Rights Act that all public accommodations nationwide were desegregated.

Facing regular threats and having lost her department store job because of her activism, Parks moved from Alabama to Detroit in 1957. She later joined the staff of U.S. Rep. John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat.

Conyers, who first met Parks during the early days of the civil rights struggle, recalled Monday that she worked on his original congressional staff when he first was elected to the House of Representatives in 1964.

"I think that she, as the mother of the new civil rights movement, has left an impact not just on the nation, but on the world," he told CNN in a telephone interview. "She was a real apostle of the nonviolence movement."

He remembered her as someone who never raised her voice -- an eloquent voice of the civil rights movement.

"You treated her with deference because she was so quiet, so serene -- just a very special person," he said, adding that "there was only one" Rosa Parks.

Gregory Reed, a longtime friend and attorney, said Parks died between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. of natural causes. He called Parks "a lady of great courage."

Parks co-founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development to help young people pursue educational opportunities, get them registered to vote and work toward racial peace.

"As long as there is unemployment, war, crime and all things that go to the infliction of man's inhumanity to man, regardless -- there is much to be done, and people need to work together," she once said.

Even into her 80s, she was active on the lecture circuit, speaking at civil rights groups and accepting awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1999.

"This medal is encouragement for all of us to continue until all have rights," she said at the June 1999 ceremony for the latter medal.

Parks was the subject of the documentary "Mighty Times: The Legacy of Rosa Parks," which received a 2002 Oscar nomination for best documentary short.

In April, Parks and rap duo OutKast settled a lawsuit over the use of her name on a CD released in 1998. (Full story)

Bus boycott
She was born Rosa Louise McCauley in Tuskegee, Alabama, on February 4, 1913. Her marriage to Raymond Parks lasted from 1932 until his death in 1977.

Parks' father, James McCauley, was a carpenter, and her mother, Leona Edwards McCauley, a teacher.

Before her arrest in 1955, Parks was active in the voter registration movement and with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, where she also worked as a secretary in 1943.

At the time of her arrest, Parks was 42 and on her way home from work as a seamstress.

She took a seat in the front of the black section of a city bus in Montgomery. The bus filled up and the bus driver demanded that she move so a white male passenger could have her seat.

"The driver wanted us to stand up, the four of us. We didn't move at the beginning, but he says, 'Let me have these seats.' And the other three people moved, but I didn't," she once said.

When Parks refused to give up her seat, a police officer arrested her.

As the officer took her away, she recalled that she asked, "Why do you push us around?"

The officer's response: "I don't know, but the law's the law, and you're under arrest."

She added, "I only knew that, as I was being arrested, that it was the very last time that I would ever ride in humiliation of this kind."

Four days later, Parks was convicted of disorderly conduct and fined $14.

That same day, a group of blacks founded the Montgomery Improvement Association and named King, the young pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, as its leader, and the bus boycott began.

For the next 381 days, blacks -- who according to Time magazine had comprised two-thirds of Montgomery bus riders -- boycotted public transportation to protest Parks' arrest and in turn the city's Jim Crow segregation laws.

Black people walked, rode taxis and used carpools in an effort that severely damaged the transit company's finances.

The mass movement marked one of the largest and most successful challenges of segregation and helped catapult King to the forefront of the civil rights movement.

The boycott ended on November 13, 1956, after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that Montgomery's segregated bus service was unconstitutional.

Parks' act of defiance came one year after the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision that led to the end of racial segregation in public schools. (Full story)

U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, a Democrat, told CNN Monday he watched the 1955-56 Montgomery drama unfold as a teenager and it inspired him to get active in the civil rights movement.

"It was so unbelievable that this woman -- this one woman -- had the courage to take a seat and refuse to get up and give it up to a white gentleman. By sitting down, she was standing up for all Americans," he said.”

“I'm sitting down at this momement in memory of her.”

“May she Rest In Peace.”

“An amazing woman and worth our admiration and thanks.”

“Just a thought from out of the blue.
Does anyone know the name of the guy that wanted her seat?

Guess Rosa won on that score too.”

“Wasn't it the bus driver who asked her to move. A great woman to stand up, errr sit down, for herself.
last edited: 10/25/05 10:51:58 AM”

“Navi, what a great observation. I had never thought of that.”

“it's crazy to think that segregation existed within someone's lifetime who was alive just yesterday..seems like it should've been eleventy million years ago, instead of just 50.”

“OH THANKS LYRA!!!!

Can you think of any others ways to make me feel OLD?


8^)”

“Mrs. Parks’ arrest was the precipitating factor rather than the cause of the protest. The cause lay deep in the record of similar injustices...Actually no one can understand the action of Mrs. Parks unless he realizes that eventually the cup of endurance runs over, and the human personality cries out, 'I can take it no longer. - MLK, 1958”

“LMAO @ Navi!! that wasn't what i meant, i just meant it's crazy that that kind of thing went on so recently! hahaha...”

“RIP, an amazing woman.”

“"Rosa Parks ain't do nothin', but sit her black a** down !" -- Eddie, from Barbershop”

“Not sure the name of the white man, but from wikipedia it looks like the bus driver's name was James Blake.”

“Next Tuesday will be an interesting commute to Detroit... They are having a viewing of Rosa Parks remains at the African American Museum. I wonder how many people will stop by to give her their respects?”

“"Well behaved women never make history" -Susan B. Anthony.


Thank you Rosa! The world is a better place for your having been in it. RIP.”

“Its always an interesting commute to Detroit, isn't it Pink? Took me an hour and 10 minutes one day last week, and I'm only 20 miles out....


Watching the news coverage in Detroit is cool. She's lived here for such a long time and people have so many good things to say about her. It really is amazing to me that the event that made her famous really wasn't that long ago.”

“I read recently that Rosa Parks wasn't the first person arrested in Montgomery for refusing to move to the back. Two others including a pregnant teenager were arrested earlier. The NAACP chose Rosa because she presented a better image.

Wasn't she robbed and beaten by a black teenager in Detroit? Detroit has a 50% illiteracy rate for adults.

RIP Rosa. It's got to be better in heaven.”

“Yes, her house in Detroit was broken into and she was robbed. Don't know many of the details beyond that, honestly.

What does the illiteracy rate have to do with this?”

“Sadly, yes, she was robbed a few years ago. I remember feeling upset at the time about the fact that the robber must have been so strung out to have not recognized who she was.

I agree with smiley, illiteracy probably had little to do with the robbery. Criminals generally prey upon the old and weak--sadly, due to her age, she was probably just an easy opportunity to the person who committed the crime....”

“I remember feeling upset at the time about the fact that the robber must have been so strung out to have not recognized who she was.

Punkbaubelz
12:53:00 PM
10/26/05

I doubt most people would have known what she looked like”

“Ewker, I doubt most people who would commit a crime against an elderly woman would know what Rosa Parks looks like, but she's a farily common figure in the Detroit area. She seems to be on TV a few times a year, and I could have picked her out of a crowd. I suppose the common jerk who needs to rob someone doesn't watch the news too often, though. :)”

“Detroit has a 50% illiteracy rate for adults.

i like to think of it as a 50% literacy rate.
cup half-full, donchta know?”

“uh....50% literacy rate! There. That's a lot better eh?

When Rosa Parks was robbed and beaten she asked the guy if he knew who she was. He replied that he did not. She told him and he said that he didn't know who that was and didn't care.

I'd say the glass is half empty my friend.”

“They have Rosa's body for viewing in the Rotunda at the White House.

I heard the put her in the back of the room.”

“ba-dum-tcha!”

“Sadly, if you watch Jay Leno, he makes lots of social commentary, when he does the "Battle of the Jay Walkers" bits...

Americans in general are quite remiss when it comes to history, and political figures...

There were lots of people who couldn't even tell you who the current president is, much less identify a historical figure by sight....This doesn't even really seem to matter between different cultural backgrounds, ethnicities and races.... As a nation, we are raising a village of idiots...

For some people they have no idea what's in the glass at all....

And, I'm disappointed to see TTers posting weak "jokes" about Rosa Parks....people should show a bit more respect for the dead....”

“Americans in general are quite remiss when it comes to history, and political figures...

People shold show a bit more respect for the living....”

“...and tell strong jokes rather than weak ones.”

“I don't think that Battle of the Jaywalkers on Leno is for real. I think it's rigged to make those people look stupid and create a few laughs.”

“Pink, are you going to pay your respects to Mrs. Parks? I'm considering it, since I'll be a few blocks away Tuesday night. I just heard on the news that the lines are already several hours long, and she's only been at the museum an hour this evening.”

“More young U.S. citizens in the study knew that the island featured in last season's TV show "Survivor" is in the South Pacific than could find Israel.”

“Particularly humiliating was that all countries were better able to identify the U.S. population than many young U.S. citizens. Within the U.S., almost one-third said that population was between one billion and two billion; the answer is 289 million.”

“Wayne State University is about 2 blocks from the African American museum where Rosa Parks currently lies in repose. I had class tonight but took off because the prof put a movie on for us and took off. I decided to spend my time drivig by the museum.

The line of people waiting to see her is very, very, very long. I thought about staying to have the honor to see her, but I have a mid-term tomorrow and need to study! The Montgomery bus that she was on when she refused to give up her seat is usually at the Henry Ford Museum, but they moved it to where she is curently.

I wish I would have stayed, because it would have been so wonderful to be part of this history. There were so many people who came to see her, and I felt such a peaceful energy. (I just heard on the news that 25,000 people have paid their respects since 9PM last night.)

Unfortunatly, there were also people there capitalizing on the event, selling t-shirts. I don't think Mrs. Parks would be very happy about that.

The funeral is tomorrow morning, and then she will be laid to rest in a mosaleum in a cemetary in Detroit, where she has lived for many decades. Her husband and mother will be moved from their earthen graves into the mosaleum next to her.

May Rosa Parks rest in peace. Thank you, Rosa, for sitting down on that bus and changing this nation.”