NATIONAL REPORT
ROSA PARKS
MOTHER OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS
MOVEMENT
1913-2005
T
hough she did not know what it would become,
Rosa Parks nurtured the seed of freedom planted in her generations before.
On Dec. 1,1955, at age 42, her time had come. She
refused to move and at that moment in Montgomery,
4L, gave birtb to a ci-y for equality that would be conThe diminutive seamstress from Tuskegee helped
launch the Civil Rights Movement.
M SCLC President Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. greets Rosa
Parks during the organization's 10th Annual Convention in
Atlanta.
A woman of
courage and
quiet strength,
Rosa Parks
leaves a rich
legacy for millions to share.
•^ Rosa Parks is escorted by E.D, Nixon, former
president of the
Montgomery (AL)
NAACP. as she arrives at
the Montgomery courthouse for the bus boycott
trial in 1956,
soled by nothing less.
A bnlf-century later, children of
the Civil Rights Movement mourn
their mother's recent pacing and
remembei' her as the courageous
woman who symbolized both the
power of Black unity and the
strength of individual character. A
woman who represents that whicb
ail ftiture generations should aspire.
Parks, 92, succumbed in her
sleep at her home in Detroit.
"She was more than an accident, more than an incidental.
Rosa Parks was one ofthe greatest
symbols of our history," said EBONY
Magazine Executive Editor Emeritus Lerone Bennett, Jt.
"She reminds us at a time
wben many need reminding, that
one woman or one man can make a
difference and that every man and
woman ought to try. It is not
enough to praise her from afar. Her
life and her death caU us to the task
0Ï continuing the unfinished freedom
movement and ensuring tbat she did not
live, dream and stmggle in vain."
On tbat fateful Thursday in 1955, which
had been like scoi'es of Thursdays before, the
diminutive assistant tailor at Montgomery Fair Department Store had
boarded the Cleveland Ave. bus beading home.
She had paid the same dime as all the Whites wbo were seated in
the front ofthe bus, yet she had to sit in the back. And now, as more
Whites boarded, she had to (according to bus segregation practices)
stand and let the one White man wbo did not bave a seat take the
NATIONAL REPORT
• Rosa Parks cared for her mother, Leona
McCauley. a schooiteacher, until her death in 1979
•^ Raymond Parks, the late husband of Rosa Park:
was a politically active barber. He died in 1977.
entire row.
But she refused!
"People always say that I didn't give up
my seat because I was tired, but that wasn't true," Parks said in her autobiography
Rosa Parks: My Story. "I was not tired
physically, or no more tired than I usually
was at the end of a working day. I was not
old, although some people have an image
of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No,
the only tired I was, was tired of giving in."
White bus driver James Blake asked
her to stand up, but she said, "No." "Well
I'm going to have you arrested," he replied.
"You may do that," Parks quipped.
^ The refurbished bus in which Rosa Parks
refused to give up her seat in 1955 is unveiled at
the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mi. Parks iater said her decision was partiy sparked by the
August 1955 iynching of 14-year-oid Emmett Tiil.
"i thought about Emmett Tiii and just couldn't
go back."
She was arrested for violating segregation laws. The trial date was set for Dec. 5.
She made bail and went home.
That very night the local Women's Political Council called for a one-day boycott of
the city bus system on Monday, Dec. 5, in
protest.
The first battle was over within hours,
but the historic war for the political salvation of Black folk there had just begun.
One year earlier in May 1954, the Supreme Court handed down the historic
Brown v. Board of Education decision banning segregated education in public schools,
and Pai'ks was among activists in the South
anxiously gearing up to help enforce the
new law of the land.
T Two women exit from this church-operated station wagon in Montgomery, AL, which provided
transportation to Biacks who boycotted city buses.
• Rosa Parks is fingerprinted foiiowing her arrest in
February 1956 for breaking boycotting laws.
• Parks confers with Montgomery activist E.D. Nixon
at right.
f
NATIONAL REPORT
A Congressman John Conyers receives
support from Parks during a
Congressional campaign. She later worked
as his receptionist and office assistant
until she retired in 1988.
Parks greets customers with a smile at
Hampton (VA) University's Holly Tree Inn
where she worked as a hostess.
And the Montgomery NAACP, fostered by activist E.D. Nixon's strategies,
had yearned to challenge the racist
public transportation laws there, so
Parks' case was considered virtual
divine intervention.
• South Africa's Nelson and Winnie Mandela greet Parks upon arriving at Detroit Metropolitan
Airport in 1990 as Judge Damon Keith (I) and Detroit Mayor Coleman Young look on.
NATIONAL REPORT
A At the 1997 Rosa Parks Elementary School dedication in San Francisco. Parks holds a program
bearing her early photo. Educating children was one of Parks' passions. She greets children at a summer camp dedication in Detroit that same year. In 1987. with Elaine Steele, she founded the Rosa and
Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development to foster children's educational goals.
The Tuskegee, AL, native's quiet demeanor amid the furor belied the freedom
seed which she'd nurtured as a child.
Little Rosa Louise McCauley recalled
the nights she lay on the floor next to her
grandfather who sat in his rocking chair
armed with a shotgun ready to take on the
Klansmen who were terrorizing his community.
She remembered the countless days
she'd walk to her segregated school in Pine
Level, AL, and White children would throw
trash at her and her classmates from their
hus as they rode by.
She recollected the hundreds of other
10
indignities her family and other Blacks
endured daily.
Parks credited her grandfather with
instilling in her rebellious passion for fairness and equality. "You don't put up with
bad treatment from anybody. It was passed
down almost in our genes," she said.
Her father, James McCauley, was a
free-lance carpenter and builder who
traveled extensively, and her mother.
Leona McCauley, was a schoolteacher.
Parks was two years older than her
brother Sylvester.
They were reared by their mother after
McCauley left when Parks wasfive.And
NATIONAL R i ^
A President Clinton congratulates Rosa Parks after presenting her the Presidential Medal of Freedom
at the White House. The medal is the nation's highest civilian award.
they lived with her maternal grandparents.
She especially admired the strength of
her grandfather, Sylvester Edwards, and
it was likely that quality which attracted
her to Raymond Parks, a Montgomery harber 10 years her senior, whom sbe married
in 1932.
"I was very impressed by the fact that
he didn't seem to have that meek attitude-what we called an 'Uncle Tom' attitude-toward White people," she wrote.
He was very active in the NAACP and
AI
-4 Rep. Julia
Carson (D-IN)
unveils a drawing
of the Rosa Parks
Congressional
Goid Medal. Parks
received the award
at age 86.
A Parks receives a Degree of Humane
Letters from Florida State University
President Sandy D'Aiemberte (r) in 1994.
Regent Steve Uhlfelder (i) and Dr.
Freddie Groomes (rear) look on.
• The civil rights crusader converses
with Virginia Governor L. Douglas Wilder
during the Lincoln University 1992
Commencement Both received honorary
degrees.
• A Doctor of Humane Letters degree
from Wayne State University is just one
of the many honorable degrees bestowed
upon the civil rights legend.
fostered her social interests and education. They became a modem-day
power couple.
Parks had dropped out of
school to work and take care of her
ailing mother. However, with her
new husband's support, she returned to school and earned her
high school diploma.
Over the years, they both worked tirelessly for civil rights efforts and by 1949
Parks had become secretary of the Montgomery Senior Branch NAACP and adviser to the the NAACP Youth Council.
By 1955 Parks was an integral part of
Montgomery's social and civic community
and this time her abuse would not be overlooked.
This was the history leading up to the
war that would rage in Montgomery followiiig her arrest.
On her Monday court date, Parks was
found guilty of violating segregation laws,
given a suspended sentence and fined
$10.00 plus $4.00 court costs.
Now the case to overturn the segregation
laws could be appealed to a higher court.
The day-long boycott scheduled that
Monday was so effective it was extended
indefinitely and grew into a movement.
And Martin Luther King, Jr., the new and
promising young pastor of Dexter Avenue
Baptist Church, was called upon to lead it
as president of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA).
But its symbol was the petite, unassuming woman whose courage and humility
inspired thousands to say, "If she can do it,
then surely so can 1."
"She was probably the only person in
Montgomery, AL, that had no enemies and
that everybody respected," former U.N.
•4 This street sign is a
permanent reminder of the
courage it took for Rosa
Parks to take a stand
against segregation in
Montgomery. AL. The former Cleveland Avenue was
changed to Rosa L Parks
Avenue in 1986.
T A Montgomery Alabama
city bus drives away from
the Alabama Capitol as it
travelsthe Rosa Parks
Avenue bus route. The former Cleveland Avenue bus
route was named after
Parks in 1986. It has since
been re-named Court
Street Route.
NATIONAL REPORT
Ambassador Andrew Young recalled.
"There had been others who had been
humiliated on the buses before. She was
not the first, but when she was thrown in
jail it said to all of Montgomery that none
of us is safe. It was the purity of her character that galvanized the movement."
The MIA formed a Transportation
Committee that established a virtual transportation system for some 80,000 daily
boycotters comprised of private cars and
station wagons.
In Februaiy 1956, King, other
ministers
and MIA members were
AP
indicted on a charge of violating
Montgomery's boycotting law.
Parks was reindicted.
King was found guilty, but the
case was appealed.
Despite the police intimidation, job-firings and legal machinations. Blacks in Montgomery
continued to walk and Rosa
Parks was among them.
Tbe movement had gained
national attention as did Parks, who
refused speakers fees as she traveled across the country to talk
about the moment that changed
America.
Though called for one day, the
boycott lasted 12 months.
And finally, on Dec. 21, 1956,
after a Supreme Court decision, the
buses were integrated.
But more importantly, the MontContinued on page 57
Continued from page 17
gomery model for non-violent direct action
had spread to Atlanta, Bii-mingham and
Tallahassee, FL, and other Southern communities and the modern Civil Rights
Movement had begun, she recalled.
The following year, Rosa Parks, her
husband and mother moved to Detroit, but
she remained on the front lines for years
speaking on the boycott and the Civil
Rights Movement.
She briefly worked at Hampton (VA)
University as hostess at the Holly Tree Inn,
the campus residence and guest house, hut
returned to Detroit where she worked as a
seamstress and continued her political
activities.
She supported John Conyers' Congressional Campaign in 1964 and after he won
the election, she worked in his office as a
receptionist and office assistant until she
retired in 1988.
Her husband, mother and brother preceded her in death.
For her lifelong activism, she has received,
in her own words, "more honorary degrees
and plaques and awards than I can count"
Among them, the nation's two highest
civilian honors, the Presidential Medal of
Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal.
President Bill Clinton, who awarded hei'
the Presidential Medal, said, "I was honored to award her the EYesidential Medal of
Freedom. She was an inspiration to me and
to all who work for the day when we will be
one America."
A bust of the civil rights icon was
unveiled in the Smithsonian, the Cleveland
Ave. bus route on which she was arrested
oothes
Evens
skin tone
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NATIONAIREPORT
I
•%
3
Rosa Parks is greeted by Whoopi
Goldberg (i) and Sissy Spacek after the
1990 premiere of the Long Walk Home, a
movie about the friendship between a White
woman and a Black woman that resulted
from the famous Montgomery Bus Boycott,
•^ Alabama Gov, Done Siegelman presents
Rosa Parks with the first Governor's Medal
of Honor for Extraordinary Courage.
was renamed in her honor, and countless streets, schools, libraries, scholarships and awards bear her name.
But dearest to her heart was tbe
Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for
Self-Development which she created with
Elaine Steele to "motivate youtb to reach
tbeir highest potential," fosteiii^ educational and social enrichment to nurture "a
...more
honorary
degrees
and plaques
and awards
than I can
count."
Rosa Parks stands next to
a bust of her likeness at
the Smithsonian Institute
I in Washington. D.C.
Rosa
NATIONAL REPORT
A Civii Rights Pioneer Rosa Parks accepts the American Public Transit Association's first-ever
Lifetime Achievement Award during a ceremony in Washington, D.C in 1997. Joining Parks are (i-r)
Federal Transit Administration Administrator Gordon Linton, American Transit Association President
William Millar and Joseph Lowery. president. Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
T Rosa Parks is all smiles in 1998 as she accepts the International Freedom Conductor Award from
(I r) John Pepper, board chairman and CEO of Procter & Gamble and member of the Freedom
Center's National Advisory Board (NAB), and Vernon E. Jordan Jr., attorney, senior partner of Akin,
Gump. Strauss, Hauer & Feld and NAB member. Elaine Steele of Detroit assists Parks.
global and inclusive perspective."
"There is only one world," Parks said,
"and yet, we as people, have treated the
world as if it were divided. We cannot
allow the gains we have made to erode.
Although we have a long way to go, 1 do
believe that we can achieve Dr. King's
dream of a better world."
At JET press time, services for Mr-s.
Parks were being held in Montgomery,
AL, Washington, D.C, where she lay
in state in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda-the
first woman so honored-and Detroit,
JET'S NOV. 21,2005 issue will feature
lull coverage of those .services. T
-Malcolm R. West
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