That was when the “Mother of the Modern Day Civil Rights Movement” refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger.
Advertisement
The boycott would continue for a year, until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the city and state laws segregating buses violated the U.S. Constitution.
On how she wanted to be remembered:I’d only like for [historians] to say that I was a person who believed in the freedom and equality for all people, regardless of their race and color, regardless of whatever their religious beliefs may be.
As Gwen Ifill suggested to Jeanne Theoharis, author of The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, in an interview with PBS Newshour, “Rosa Parks, with her straw hats and her church lady clothes and her demure attitude and her maternal aspect, was a far more preferable face to put on [the movement],?”
“There are still injustices perpetuated every day in our country, sometimes in spite of the law, sometimes unfortunately in keeping of it”, Clinton said.
President Obama, meanwhile, also marked the anniversary with a statement in which he lauded Parks for having “changed America”.
Now that these documents and photographs are viewable to the public, hopefully the world can finally learn about the strong, out-spoken, civil rights activist – that called Malcolm X her personal hero – that Rosa Parks actually was, rather than the meek, passive, “tired”, woman that history tells about. But her deft turn in Alabama showed the depth of Clintonian influence in an area where even other Democratic candidates have faltered.
She spent her formative years outside Montgomery, in Pine Level, Alabama. The church, Dexter Avenue Baptist, was pastored by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
On December 1, 1955 Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Ala.to a white passenger, leading to her arrest. In March of 1955, nine months before Parks was arrested, Claudette Colvin, then 15, was arrested for refusing to give up her seat. Thousands of people walked everywhere they needed to go – sometimes for miles – rather than take municipal transportation.
“Those of us who serve in politics or who want to lead our country have a special responsibility to bring Americans together, not pull us apart”, Clinton said.
She said the United States needed to address mass incarceration and gun violence in the nation.
Advertisement
This anniversary may be the last major one featuring those who participated in the year-long boycott, said Howard Robinson, an archivist and instructor at Alabama State University, which will host a discussion titled I Was There. The event spotlighted the civil rights legacies of lawyers such as Fred D. Gray, who at age 24 represented Parks.
