Civil Rights Pioneer Rosa Parks Dead At 92

[FORD]

Civil Rights Pioneer Rosa Parks Dead At 92

POSTED: 9:35 pm EDT October 24, 2005

Civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks has died, Local 4 has learned.

Parks, 92, reportedly died around 7 p.m. Monday at St. John Hospital on Detroit's east side.

Parks' refusal to give up her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Ala., in 1955 landed her in jail and sparked a bus boycott that is considered the start of the modern civil rights movement. The bus is on display at the Henry Ford Museum, Dearborn.

Parks, was born Feb. 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Ala. She lived in Detroit.

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[FORD]

Rosa Parks, matriarch of civil rights era, dies
Catalyst of U.S. civil rights movement was 92, living in Detroit

BREAKING NEWS
The Associated Press
Updated: 10:43 p.m. ET Oct. 24, 2005

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, 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 black Americans 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 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.”


© 2005 MSNBC.com

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9809237/

[Sarge's Little Helper]

R.I.P.

[Nickdfresh]

She's a real American hero...

R.I.P.

[DLR'sCock]

RIP, you are closer to God now....

[Millermoos]

Yes she had guts!!
Millermoos

[Guitar Shark]

Re: Civil Rights Pioneer Rosa Parks Dead At 92

Originally posted by FORD

Those are some big ass lips.

[jhale667]

R.I.P.

[Angel]

She should go down in history as one of the Greatest US women of all time.

[b1c2]

Originally posted by Angel
She should go down in history as one of the Greatest US women of all time.

Definitely someone I've always looked up to.

[ThrillsNSpills]

Re: Re: Civil Rights Pioneer Rosa Parks Dead At 92

Originally posted by Guitar Shark
Those are some big ass lips.

It's Mick Jagger's lips.

[FORD]

Washington, DC - Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean issued the following statement in honor of the life and legacy of Rosa Parks:

"Today we mourn the passing of Rosa Parks, the mother of the modern civil rights movement. On a December day in 1955, Mrs. Parks, in one simple yet crystallizing act of moral clarity, gave voice and form to the struggle for civil rights and equality in our country. And, in so doing, Mrs. Parks pushed us to be a better nation.

"Mrs. Parks will long be remembered for her courage on that bus in Montgomery, Alabama, which sparked the beginning of the Montgomery bus boycott led by civil rights leaders such as E.D. Nixon, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Rev. Ralph Abernathy. This moment sparked an historic beginning and paved the way for the historic 1964 Civil Rights Act which banned racial discrimination in public facilities, but her courage and commitment to civil rights began much earlier and reaches far deeper.

"As a nation, we are all thankful for her courageous contributions. Today, in honor of Mrs. Parks' legacy, we must be committed to fighting the inequities that remain and championing fundamental rights for all whether it is voting rights, equality for immigrants or a commitment to end poverty in America. This is the true legacy of Rosa Parks which will live on long after her passing."

[FORD]

Originally posted by b1c2
Definitely someone I've always looked up to.

Yeah... I can't see you taking a back seat to anybody either

I look at that picture and it reminds me so much of my own late great grandmother, whose name was Rosa, oddly enough. Aside from the minor issue of melanin levels, they could almost be twins.

And both were great servants of the Lord.

[Jesus Christ]

Originally posted by FORD

And both were great servants of the Lord.

Verily, My son.

And welcome into My kingdom Rosa, My faithful servant

[ELVIS]

Nauseating...

Blah...