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| {{Infobox_Biography | |||
| |subject_name=Rosa Parks | |||
| |image_name=Rosa Parks.JPG | |||
| |image_caption=Rosa Parks. | |||
| |dead=dead | |||
| |date_of_birth=], ] | |||
| |place_of_birth=], ], ] | |||
| |date_of_death=], ] | |||
| |place_of_death=], ], ]}} | |||
| ] in the background.]] | |||
| '''Rosa Louise McCauley Parks''' (] ] – ] ]) was an ] ] and ] ] whom the ] dubbed the "Mother of the Modern-Day ]". | |||
| Parks is famous for her refusal on ], ] to obey bus driver ]'s demand that she relinquish her seat to a ] passenger. Her subsequent arrest and trial for this act of ] triggered the ], one of the largest and most successful mass movements against ] in history, and launched ], one of the organizers of the boycott, to the forefront of the civil rights movement. Her role in American history earned her an iconic status in American culture, and her actions have left an enduring legacy for civil rights movements around the world. | |||
| ==Early years== | |||
| Rosa Parks was born '''Rosa Louise McCauley''' in ], ] on ], ] to James and Leona McCauley, respectively, a ] and a teacher. Small, even for a child, she suffered poor health and had chronic ]. When her parents separated, she moved with her mother to ], just outside ]. There she grew up on a farm with her maternal grandparents, mother, and younger brother Sylvester, and began her lifelong membership in the ]. She was ] by her mother until she was eleven, then enrolled at the Industrial School for Girls in Montgomery where she took academic and vocational courses. Parks then went on to a laboratory school set up by the ] for secondary education, but was forced to drop out to care for her grandmother, and later for her mother, after they became ill. | |||
| Under ]s, black and white people were segregated in virtually every aspect of daily life in the ], including public transportation. Bus and train companies did not provide separate vehicles for the different races, but did enforce seating policies that allocated separate sections for blacks and whites. School bus transportation, however, was unavailable in any form for black schoolchildren in the South. Parks recalled going to elementary school in Pine Level, where school buses took white students to their new school and black students had to walk to theirs: "I'd see the bus pass every day… But to me, that was a way of life; we had no choice but to accept what was the custom. The bus was among the first ways I realized there was a black world and a white world." | |||
| Though Parks' autobiography recounts that some of her earliest memories are of the kindness of white strangers, her situation made it impossible to ignore ]. When the ] marched down the street in front of her house, Parks recalls her grandfather guarding the front door with a shotgun. The Montgomery Industrial School, founded and staffed by white Northerners for black children, was burned twice by ]ists, and its faculty was ostracized by the white community. | |||
| In 1932, Rosa married ], a ] from Montgomery, at her mother's house. Raymond was a member of the ] (NAACP), at the time collecting money to support the ], a group of black men falsely accused of raping two white women. After her marriage, Rosa took a number of jobs, ranging from domestic worker to hospital aide. At her husband's urging, she finished her high school studies in 1933, at a time when less than 7% of African Americans had a high school diploma. Despite the Jim Crow laws that made political participation by black people difficult, she succeeded in registering to vote on her third try. | |||
| In December 1943, Parks became active in the ], joined the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP, and was elected volunteer secretary to its president, ]. Of her position, she later said, "I was the only woman there, and they needed a secretary, and I was too timid to say no." She would continue as secretary until 1957. In the 1940s, Parks and her husband were also members of the Voters' League. Sometime soon after 1944, she held a brief job at ], a federally owned area where ] was not allowed, and rode on an integrated trolley. Speaking to her biographer, Parks noted, "You might just say Maxwell opened my eyes up." Parks also worked as a housekeeper and seamstress for a white couple, ]. The politically ] Durrs became her friends, and encouraged Parks to attend, and eventually helped sponsor her at the ], an education center for workers' rights and racial equality in ], in the summer of 1955. | |||
| Like many black people, Parks was deeply moved by the brutal murder of ] in August 1955. On November 27, 1955—only four days before she refused to give up her seat—she later recalled that she had attended a mass meeting in Montgomery which focused on this case as well as the recent murders of ] and ]. The featured speaker at the meeting was ], a black civil rights leader from Mississippi who headed the ]. People also said that Rosa Parks was "Sweet and soft spoken but made a statement that screamed so loud." | |||
| ==Civil rights activism== | |||
| === Events leading up to boycott === | |||
| {{seealso|Homer Plessy|Plessy v. Ferguson}} | |||
| In 1944, athletic star ] took a similar stand in a confrontation with an Army officer in ], ], refusing to move to the back of a bus. He was brought before a ], which acquitted him.<ref>, ]</ref> | |||
| The NAACP had accepted and litigated other cases before, such as that of ] ten years earlier, which resulted in a victory in the ] on ] grounds. That victory, however, overturned state segregation laws only insofar as they applied to travel in interstate commerce, such as interstate bus travel. Black activists had begun to build a case around the arrest of a 15-year-old girl, ], a student at Booker T. Washington High School in Montgomery. On ], ], Colvin was handcuffed, arrested and forcibly removed from a public bus when she refused to give up her seat to a white man. She claimed that her constitutional rights were being violated. At the time, Colvin was active in the NAACP's Youth Council, a group to which Rosa Parks served as Advisor. | |||
| ], ].]] | |||
| Colvin recollected, "Mrs. Parks said, 'do what is right.'" Parks was raising money for Colvin's defense, but when ] learned that Colvin was pregnant, it was decided that Colvin was an unsuitable symbol for their cause. Soon after her arrest she had conceived a child with a much older married man, a moral transgression that scandalized the deeply religious black community. Strategists believed that the segregationist white press would use Colvin's pregnancy to undermine any boycott. The NAACP also had considered, but rejected, earlier protesters deemed unable or unsuitable to withstand the pressures of cross-examination in a legal challenge to racial segregation laws. Colvin was also known to engage in verbal outbursts and cursing. Many of the legal charges against Colvin were dropped. A boycott and legal case never materialized from the Colvin case law, and legal strategists continued to seek a complainant beyond reproach.<ref>, '']'', ] ]</ref> | |||
| In ], the first four rows of bus seats were reserved for white people. Buses had "colored" sections for black people—who made up more than 75 % of the bus system's riders—generally in the rear of the bus. These sections were not fixed in size, but were determined by the placement of a movable sign. Black people also could sit in the middle rows, until the white section was full. Then they had to move to seats in the rear, stand, or, if there was no room, leave the bus. Black people were not allowed to sit across the aisle from white people. The driver also could move the "colored" section sign, or remove it altogether. If white people were already sitting in the front, black people could board to pay the fare, but then had to disembark and reenter through the rear door. There were times when the bus departed before the black customers who had paid made it to the back entrance. | |||
| For years, the black community had complained that the situation was unfair, and Parks was no exception: "My resisting being mistreated on the bus did not begin with that particular arrest…I did a lot of walking in Montgomery." Parks had her first run-in on the public bus on a rainy day in 1943, when the bus driver, ], demanded that she get off the bus and reenter through the back door. As she began to exit by the front door, she dropped her purse. Parks sat down for a moment in a seat for white passengers, apparently to pick up her purse. The bus driver was enraged and barely let her step off the bus before speeding off. Rosa walked more than five miles home in the rain. | |||
| ====Montgomery Bus Boycott==== | |||
| {{main|Montgomery Bus Boycott}} | |||
| ] | |||
| After a day at work at Montgomery Fair department store, Parks boarded the Cleveland Avenue bus at around 6 p.m., Thursday, ], ], in downtown Montgomery. She paid her fare and sat in an empty seat in the first row of back seats reserved for blacks in the "colored" section, which was near the middle of the bus and directly behind the ten seats reserved for white passengers. Initially, she had not noticed that the bus driver was the same man, ], who had left her in the rain in 1943. As the bus traveled along its regular route, all of the white-only seats in the bus filled up. The bus reached the third stop in front of the Empire Theater, and several white passengers boarded. | |||
| In 1900, Montgomery had passed a city ordinance for the purpose of segregating passengers by race. Conductors were given the power to assign seats to accomplish that purpose; however, no passengers would be required to move or give up their seat and stand if the bus was crowded and no other seats were available. Over time and by custom, however, Montgomery bus drivers had adopted the practice of requiring black riders to move whenever there were no white only seats left. | |||
| So, following standard practice, bus driver Blake noted that the front of the bus was filled with white passengers and there were two or three men standing, and thus moved the "colored" section sign behind Parks and demanded that four black people give up their seats in the middle section so that the white passengers could sit. Years later, in recalling the events of the day, Parks said, "When that white driver stepped back toward us, when he waved his hand and ordered us up and out of our seats, I felt a determination cover my body like a quilt on a winter night." | |||
| By Parks' account, Blake said, "Y'all better make it light on yourselves and let me have those seats." <ref>, '']'', 1992</ref> Three of them complied. Parks said, "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." <ref>, '']'', ] ]</ref> The black man sitting next to her gave up his seat. Parks moved, but toward the window seat; she did not get up to move to the newly repositioned colored section.<ref>Audio interview of Parks linked to from , '']'', ] ]</ref> Blake then said, "Why don't you stand up?" Parks responded, "I don't think I should have to stand up." Blake called the police to arrest Parks. When recalling the incident for '']'', a 1987 public television series on the Civil Rights Movement, Parks said, "When he saw me still sitting, he asked if I was going to stand up, and I said, 'No, I'm not.' And he said, 'Well, if you don't stand up, I'm going to have to call the police and have you arrested.' I said, 'You may do that.'" | |||
| During a 1956 radio interview with Sydney Rogers in ] several months after her arrest, when asked why she had decided not to vacate her bus seat, Parks said, "I would have to know for once and for all what rights I had as a human being and a citizen of Montgomery, Alabama." | |||
| She also detailed her motivation in her autobiography, '' My Story''<ref>{{cite book | author=Rosa Parks, James Haskins | title=Rosa Parks: My Story | publisher=Dial Books | id=ISBN 0-8037-0673-1 | year=1992 }}</ref> | |||
| :{{Cquote|People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. 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.}} | |||
| ] | |||
| 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 as she remembered it was, "I don't know, but the law's the law, and you're under arrest." She later said, "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." | |||
| Parks was charged with a violation of Chapter 6, Section 11 segregation law of the Montgomery City code, even though she technically had not taken up a white-only seat—she had been in a colored section. E.D. Nixon and Clifford Durr bailed Parks out of jail the evening of December 1. | |||
| That evening, Nixon conferred with Alabama State College professor ] about Parks' case. Robinson, a member of the ] (WPC), stayed up all night ] over 35,000 handbills announcing a bus boycott. The Women's Political Council was the first group to officially endorse the boycott. | |||
| On Sunday, ], ], plans for the ] were announced at black churches in the area, and a front-page article in '']'' helped spread the word. At a church rally that night, attendees unanimously agreed to continue the boycott until they were treated with the level of courtesy they expected, until black drivers were hired, and until seating in the middle of the bus was handled on a first-come basis. | |||
| Four days later, Parks was tried on charges of ] and violating a local ordinance. The trial lasted 30 minutes. Parks was found guilty and fined $10, plus $4 in court costs.<ref>"Civil rights icon Rosa Parks dies at 92", '']'', ] ]</ref> Parks appealed her conviction and formally challenged the legality of racial segregation. In a 1992 interview with ]'s Lynn Neary, Parks recalled: | |||
| :{{Cquote|I did not want to be mistreated, I did not want to be deprived of a seat that I had paid for. It was just time... there was opportunity for me to take a stand to express the way I felt about being treated in that manner. I had not planned to get arrested. I had plenty to do without having to end up in jail. But when I had to face that decision, I didn't hesitate to do so because I felt that we had endured that too long. The more we gave in, the more we complied with that kind of treatment, the more oppressive it became.}} | |||
| ] | |||
| On Monday, ], ], after the success of the one-day boycott, a group of 16 to 18 people gathered at the Mt. Zion AME Zion Church to discuss boycott strategies. The group agreed that a new organization was needed to lead the boycott effort if it were to continue. Rev. ] suggested the name "]" (MIA). The name was adopted, and the MIA was formed. Its members elected as their president a relative newcomer to Montgomery, a young and mostly unknown minister of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Dr. ]. | |||
| That Monday night, 50 leaders of the African American community gathered to discuss the proper actions to be taken in response to Parks' arrest. E.D. Nixon said, "My God, look what segregation has put in my hands!" Parks was the ideal plaintiff for a test case against city and state segregation laws. While the 15-year-old ], unwed and pregnant, had been deemed unacceptable to be the center of a civil rights mobilization, King stated that, "Mrs. Parks, on the other hand, was regarded as one of the finest citizens of Montgomery—not one of the finest Negro citizens, but one of the finest citizens of Montgomery." Parks was securely married and employed, possessed a quiet and dignified demeanor, and was politically savvy. | |||
| ], ] during the bus boycott arrests.]]<!-- FAIR USE: see image description page at http://en.wikipedia.org/Image:Rosaparksarrested.jpeg for rationale --> | |||
| The day of Parks' trial—Monday, ], ]—the WPC distributed the 35,000 leaflets. The handbill read, "We are…asking every Negro to stay off the buses Monday in protest of the arrest and trial…. You can afford to stay out of school for one day. If you work, take a cab, or walk. But please, children and grown-ups, don't ride the bus at all on Monday. Please stay off the buses Monday."<ref>, '']'', ] ]</ref> | |||
| It rained that day, but the black community persevered in their boycott. Some rode in carpools, while others traveled in black-operated cabs that charged the same fare as the bus, 10 cents. Most of the remainder of the 40,000 black commuters walked, some as far as 20 miles. In the end, the boycott lasted for 382 days. Dozens of public buses stood idle for months, severely damaging the bus transit company's finances, until the law requiring segregation on public buses was lifted. | |||
| Some segregationists retaliated with terrorism. Black churches were burned or dynamited. Martin Luther King's home was bombed in the early morning hours of ], ], and E.D. Nixon's home was also attacked. However, the black community's bus boycott marked one of the largest and most successful mass movements against racial segregation. It sparked many other protests, and it catapulted King to the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement. | |||
| Through her role in sparking the boycott, Rosa Parks played an important part in internationalizing the awareness of the plight of African Americans and the civil rights struggle. King wrote in his 1958 book '']'' that 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.'" | |||
| The Montgomery bus boycott was also the inspiration for the bus boycott in the township of ] of ] which was one of the key events in the radicalization of the black majority of that country under the leadership of the ]. | |||
| ===Browder v. Gayle=== | |||
| {{main|Browder v. Gayle}} | |||
| Immediately after the initiation of the bus boycott, legal strategists began to discuss the need for a federal lawsuit to challenge city and state bus segregation laws, and approximately two months after the boycott began, they reconsidered Claudette Colvin's case. Attorneys ], ] and ] (a white lawyer who, with his wife, Virginia, was an activist in the Civil Rights Movement and a former employer of Parks) searched for the ideal case law to challenge the constitutional legitimacy of city and state bus segregation laws. Parks' case was not used as the basis for the federal lawsuit because, as a criminal case, it would have had to make its way through the state criminal appeals process before a federal appeal could have been filed. City and state officials could have delayed a final rendering for years. Furthermore, attorney Durr believed it possible that the outcome would merely have been the vacating of Parks' conviction, with no changes in segregation laws.<ref>"The Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott", '']'', 2005</ref> | |||
| Gray researched for a better lawsuit, consulting with NAACP legal counsels ] and ], who would later become ] and a ]. Gray approached Aurelia Browder, Susie McDonald, Claudette Colvin and Mary Louise Smith, all women who had had disputes involving the Montgomery bus system the previous year. They all agreed to become plaintiffs in a civil action law suit. Browder was a Montgomery housewife, Gayle the mayor of Montgomery. On ], ], the case of '']'' was filed in U.S. District Court by Fred Gray. It was ''Browder v. Gayle'' that brought segregation to an end on public buses.<ref>, '']'', 2005</ref> | |||
| On ], ], the U.S. District Court's three-judge panel ruled that Section 301 (31a, 31b and 31c) of Title 48, Code of Alabama, 1940, as amended, and Sections 10 and 11 of Chapter 6 of the Code of the City of Montgomery, 1952, "deny and deprive plaintiffs and other Negro citizens similarly situated of the equal protection of the laws and due process of law secured by the Fourteenth Amendment" ('']'', 1956). The court essentially decided that the precedent of '']'' (1954) could be applied to ''Browder v. Gayle''. On ], ], the ] outlawed racial segregation on buses, deeming it ]. The court order arrived in Montgomery, Alabama, on ], ], and the bus boycott ended the next day. However, more violence erupted following the court order, as snipers fired into buses and into King's home, and terrorists threw bombs into churches and into the homes of many church ministers, including Martin Luther King Jr.'s friend Ralph Abernathy.<ref>{{note_label|supremecourtandmove|10|a}} "Rosa Parks, 92, Founding Symbol of Civil Rights Movement, Dies", '']'', ] ]</ref> | |||
| ==Later years== | |||
| ] bus on ], ], the day Montgomery's public transportation system was legally integrated. Behind Parks is Nicholas C. Chriss, a UPI reporter covering the event.]] | |||
| After her arrest, Parks became an icon of the Civil Rights Movement, but suffered hardships as a result. She lost her job at the department store, and her husband quit his job after his boss forbade him from talking about his wife or the legal case. Parks traveled and spoke extensively. In 1957, Raymond and Rosa Parks left Montgomery for Hampton, Virginia—mostly because she was unable to find work, but also because of disagreements with King and other leaders of Montgomery's struggling civil rights movement. In Hampton, she found a job as a hostess in an inn at black ]. Later that year, after the urging of her younger brother Sylvester Parks, her husband Raymond, and her mother Leona McCauley, moved to ]. | |||
| Parks worked as a seamstress until 1965 when African-American ] ] (]-]) hired her as a secretary and receptionist for his congressional office in Detroit. She held this position until she retired in 1988.{{ref_label|supremecourtandmove|10|a}} In a telephone interview with CNN on ] ], Conyers recalled, "You treated her with deference because she was so quiet, so serene—just a very special person…. There is only one Rosa Parks." Later in life, Parks also served as a member of the Board of Advocates of the ] Federation of America. | |||
| Rosa Parks and Elaine Eason Steele co-founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development in February 1987, in honor of Rosa's husband, who died from cancer in 1977. The institute runs the "Pathways to Freedom" bus tours, which introduce young people to important civil rights and ] sites throughout the country. On a 1997 trip, the Pathways to Freedom bus drove into a river, resulting in the death of Adisa Foluke. Foluke, who was referred to as Parks' adopted grandson, also had been a ] on the bus. Several others were injured. | |||
| ] | |||
| In 1992, Parks published ''Rosa Parks: My Story'', an autobiography aimed at younger readers which details her life leading up to her decision not to give up her seat. In 1995, she published her memoirs, titled ''Quiet Strength'', which focuses on the role that her ] had played in her life. | |||
| On ], ], Joseph Skipper, an African-American drug addict, attacked the then 81-year-old Parks in her home. The incident sparked outrage throughout America. After his arrest, Skipper said that he had not known he was in Parks' home, but recognized her after entering. Skipper asked, "Hey, aren't you Rosa Parks?" to which she replied, "Yes." She handed him $3 when he demanded money, and an additional $50 when he demanded more. Before fleeing, Skipper struck Parks in the face.<ref>"Assailant Recognized Rosa Parks", '']'', ] ]</ref> Skipper was arrested and charged with various breaking and entering offenses against Parks and other neighborhood victims. He admitted guilt and, on ], ], was sentenced to eight to 15 years in prison.<ref>"Man Gets Prison Term For Attack on Rosa Parks", '']'', ] ]</ref> | |||
| A comedic scene in the 2002 film '']'' featured a cantankerous barber, played by ], arguing with co-workers and shop patrons that other African Americans before Parks had resisted giving up their seats in defiance of Jim Crow laws, and that she had received undeserved fame because of her status as an NAACP secretary. Activists ] and ] launched a boycott against the film, contending it was "disrespectful", but then-NAACP president ] stated he thought the controversy was "overblown."<ref>{{cite web | title=CNN.com - Image Awards rekindle 'Barbershop' controversy - Mar. 9, 2003 | url=http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/TV/03/08/image.awards.ap/ | accessdate=December 4 | accessyear=2005 }}</ref> The scene also offended Parks, who boycotted the NAACP 2003 ] ceremony, which Cedric hosted. "Barbershop" received nominations in four awards categories that, including a "Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture" nomination for Cedric. He did not win in that category, however, but won an award for his work as a supporting actor in the television series '']''. | |||
| ===Lawsuits=== | |||
| In March 1999, a lawsuit was filed on Parks' behalf against American hip-hop duo ] and ], claiming that the group had illegally used Rosa Parks' name without her permission for the song "Rosa Parks", the most successful radio single of OutKast's 1998 album '']''. The song's chorus, which Parks' legal defense felt was disrespectful to Parks, is as follows: "Ah ha, hush that fuss / Everybody move to the back of the bus / Do you want to bump and slump with us / We the type of people make the club get crunk." | |||
| The case was dismissed in November 1999 by US District Court Judge Barbara Hackett. In August 2000, Parks hired attorney ] to help her appeal the district court's decision. Cochran argued that the song did not have First Amendment protection because, although its title carried Parks' name, its lyrics were not about her. However, U.S. District Judge Barbara Hackett upheld OutKast's right to use Parks' name in November 1999, and Parks took the case to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where some charges were remanded for further trial. | |||
| Parks' attorneys and caretaker, Elaine Steele, refiled in August 2004, and named ], ] and LaFace Records as the defendants, along with several parties not directly connected to the songs, including ] and ] for selling the songs, and Gregory Dark and Braddon Mendelson, the director and producer, respectively, of the 1998 music video, asking for $5 billion in damages. | |||
| In October 2004, U.S. District Judge George Caram Steeh appointed ], a former mayor of Detroit and Michigan Supreme Court justice, as guardian of legal matters for Parks after her family expressed concerns that her caretakers and her lawyer was pursuing the case based on their own financial interest.<ref>"'I understand I am a symbol, but I have never gotten used to being a public person'", '']'', ] ]</ref> "My auntie would never, ever go to this length to hurt some young artists trying to make it in the world," Parks' niece Rhea McCauley said in an ] interview. "As a family, our fear is that during her last days Auntie Rosa will be surrounded by strangers trying to make money off of her name."<ref>"Medical records show Rosa Parks had dementia as early as 2002", '']'', ] ]</ref> | |||
| The lawsuit was settled ], ]. In the settlement agreement, OutKast and their producer and recorded labels paid Parks an undisclosed cash settlement and agreed to work with the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development in creating educational programs about the life of Rosa Parks. The record labels and OutKast admitted to no wrongdoing. It is not known whether Parks' legal fees were paid for from her settlement money or by the record companies.<ref>, '']'', ] ]</ref> | |||
| == Death and funeral == | |||
| ], ], edition of '']'' after Rosa Parks' death.]] | |||
| Rosa Parks resided in ] until she died at the age of 92 on ], ], at about 19:00 ], in her apartment on the east side of the city. She had been diagnosed with progressive ] in 2004. | |||
| City officials in Montgomery and Detroit announced on ] that the front seats of their city buses would be reserved with black ribbons in honor of Parks until her funeral. Parks' coffin was flown to ] and taken in a horse-drawn hearse to the St. Paul ] (AME) church, where she ] at the altar, dressed in the uniform of a church deaconess, on ]. A memorial service was held there the following morning, and one of the speakers, ] ], said that if it had not been for Rosa Parks, she would probably have never become the Secretary of State. In the evening the casket was transported to ] and taken, aboard a bus similar to the one in which she made her protest, to ] in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda (making her the first woman and second African American ever to receive this honor). An estimated 50,000 people viewed the casket there, and the event was broadcast on television on ]. This was followed by another memorial service at a different St. Paul AME church in Washington on the afternoon of ]. For two days, she lay in repose at the ] in ]. | |||
| Parks' ] service, seven hours long, was held on Wednesday, ], at the Greater Grace Temple Church. After the funeral service, an honor guard from the Michigan ] laid the U.S. flag over the casket and carried it to a horse-drawn hearse, which had been intended to carry it, in daylight, to the cemetery. As the hearse passed the thousands of people who had turned out to view the procession, many clapped and released white balloons. Rosa was interred between her husband and mother at Detroit's Woodlawn Cemetery in the chapel's mausoleum. (The chapel was renamed the Rosa L. Parks Freedom Chapel just after her death.)<ref>, '']'', ], ]</ref> Parks had previously prepared and placed a headstone on the selected location with the inscription "Rosa L. Parks, wife, 1913–". | |||
| ==Awards and honors== | |||
| ], in 1979.]] | |||
| ] bears the legend "Mother of the Modern Day Civil Rights Movement".]] | |||
| Parks received most of her national accolades very late in life, with relatively few awards and honors being given to her until many decades after the Montgomery Bus Boycott. In 1979, the ] awarded Parks the ], its highest honor, and she received the Martin Luther King Jr. Award the next year. She was inducted into the ] in 1983 for her achievements in ]. In 1990, she was called at the last moment to be part of the group welcoming ], who had just been released from his imprisonment in ]. Upon spotting her in the reception line, Mandela called out her name and, hugging her, said, "You sustained me while I was in prison all those years." <ref>, ''WPCO News'', ] ]</ref> | |||
| Parks received the ] in 1994 in ], ]. On ], ], President Bill Clinton presented Parks with the ], the highest honor given by the U.S. executive branch. In 1998, she became the first recipient of the International Freedom Conductor Award given by the ]. The next year, Parks was awarded the ], the highest award given by the U.S. legislative branch and also received the ] Freedom Award. Parks was ] of President ] during his 1999 ]. Also that year, ] named Parks one of the 20 most influential and iconic figures of the twentieth century.<ref>", '']'', ] ]</ref> In 2000, her home state awarded her the Alabama Academy of Honor, as well as the first Governor's Medal of Honor for Extraordinary Courage. She was also awarded two dozen honorary doctorates from universities worldwide, and was made an honorary member of the ] sorority. | |||
| ]]] | |||
| The Rosa Parks Library and Museum on the campus of Troy University in ], was dedicated to her on ], ]. It is located on the corner where Parks boarded the famed bus. The most popular items in the museum are the interactive bus arrest of Mrs. Parks and a sculpture of Parks sitting on a bus bench. The documentary "Mighty Times: The Legacy of Rosa Parks" received a 2002 nomination for ]. She also collaborated that year in a TV movie of her life starring ]. | |||
| The ] passed a resolution on ], ] to honor Parks by allowing her body to ] in the ] Rotunda. The ] approved the resolution on ]. Since the founding of the practice of lying in state in the Rotunda in 1852, Parks was the 31st person, the first woman, the first American who had not been a U.S. government official, and the second non-government official (after Frenchman ]). She was also the second black person to lie in honor, after ], one of the two ] officers who were fatally shot by Russell Eugene Weston Jr. on ], ]. Former President ] was the last person to lie in state in the Rotunda, in 2007. | |||
| On ], President ] issued a Proclamation ordering that all flags on US public areas both within the country and abroad be flown at ] on the day of Parks' funeral. | |||
| ].]] | |||
| ] in ] placed stickers<ref>", '']''</ref> dedicating the first forward-facing seat of all its buses in Parks' memory shortly after her death, and the American Public Transportation Association declared December 1, 2005, the 50th anniversary of her arrest, to be a "National Transit Tribute to Rosa Parks Day". <ref>, American Public Transportation Association, accessed ], ].</ref> On that anniversary, President George W. Bush signed H. R. 4145, directing that a statue of Parks be placed in the United States Capitol's ]. In signing the resolution directing the Joint Commission on the Library to do so, the President stated: | |||
| :{{Cquote|By placing her statue in the heart of the nation's Capitol, we commemorate her work for a more perfect union, and we commit ourselves to continue to struggle for justice for every American. <ref>{{cite web | title=President Signs H.R. 4145 to Place Statue of Rosa Parks in U.S. Capitol | url=http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/12/20051201-1.html | accessdate=December 4 | accessyear=2005 }}</ref>}} | |||
| On ], ], at ], played at Detroit's ], the late ] and Parks, who had been a long-time resident of "The Motor City", were remembered and honored by a moment of silence. It was noted that the honor was to show respect for two women who had "helped make the nation as a whole great." | |||
| In the ] ] system, the ]/Wilmington ], where the ] connects with the ], has been officially named the ] | |||
| ==Notes== | |||
| <div class="references-small"> | |||
| <references /> | |||
| </div> | |||
| ==References== | |||
| * "The Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott" by Ken Hare, Montgomery Advertiser, October 2005, retrieved ] ] | |||
| * "Browder v. Gayle: The Women Before Rosa Parks" by Tim Walker, Tolerance.org, retrieved ] ] | |||
| * "Heroes and Icons: Rosa Parks" by Rita Dove, Time.com, ] ], retrieved ] ] | |||
| * "Civil rights icon Rosa Parks dies at 92" by CNN.com, ] ], retrieved ] ] | |||
| * "Is Barbershop Right About Rosa Parks?" by Brendan I. Koerner, Slate, ] ], retrieved ] ] | |||
| * "Rosa Parks, 92, Founding Symbol of Civil Rights Movement, Dies" by E.R. Shipp, The New York Times, ] ], retrieved ] ] | |||
| * Editorial. 1974. "Two decades later." ''New York Times'' (]): 38. ("Within a year of ''],'' Rosa Parks, a tired seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama, was, like ] sixty years earlier, arrested for her refusal to move to the back of the bus.") | |||
| *John Safran's Musical Jamboree | |||
| ==See also== | |||
| *] | |||
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| ==External links== | |||
| {{Spoken Misplaced Pages|En-Rosa_Parks.ogg|2005-11-29}} | |||
| {{commons|Rosa Parks}} | |||
| {{portalpar|African American|AmericaAfrica.png}} | |||
| ===Official=== | |||
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| {{Persondata | |||
| |NAME=Parks, Rosa Louise McCauley | |||
| |ALTERNATIVE NAMES=McCauley, Rosa Louise | |||
| |SHORT DESCRIPTION=] civil rights activist, seamstress | |||
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Revision as of 17:24, 17 January 2007
all you suckers fell for it >.< ☺☻****************=**