While Rosa Parks became a symbol of the U.S. civil rights movement when she refused to give up her seat on a segregated Alabama bus, the 60th anniversary of her arrest is also highlighting lesser-known pioneers of the bus boycott she sparked. Her act of passive resistance ended with Parks’ arrest and helped fuel the Montgomery bus boycott.
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Clinton cited the need to conduct broad criminal justice reform and to improve voting rights, where she said there was “mischief afoot” in some states where steps have been understood as efforts to make it tougher to register to vote.
Bernice King, Martin Luther King’s youngest daughter, delivered the benediction.
Meanwhile, as Hillary Clinton prepares to deliver the keynote address for today’s 60th anniversary event, Montgomery’s mostly Black, mostly low-income passengers are stuck riding on an inadequate bus system because Alabama is one of four states that refuse to provide tax dollars for public transportation.
“There are still injustices perpetuated every day in our country, sometimes in spite of the law, sometimes unfortunately in keeping of it”, Clinton said.
“It took the courage of so many, and among the most courageous were the lawyers who took on the challenges in the courts and in the streets”, Clinton said of civil rights leaders who were also attorneys, noting that she is herself a “recovering lawyer”.
“Lord, as I believe that this is the century of the woman, I pray now that you grant great favor, grace and anointing to Hillary Rodham Clinton in her pursuit to be the first woman president of the United States of America”.
But the image we sometimes get of poor Rosa – worn out from her job as a seamstress in downtown Montgomery and just too exhausted to stand that afternoon – isn’t the way it was. Today, although some Black churches remain engaged in the current Black Lives Matter movement, neither they nor their pastors serve as the primary organizers.
A week ago, Sanders visited two black baptist churches in North Charleston, South Carolina, where he acknowledged he was largely unknown among the parishioners. A line stretched down the block for the limited seating in the small historic church that holds 350 people. “At least I can say I did see her and I’ve been in her presence”.
Martin Luther King wrote “Actually, no one can understand the action of Ms Parks unless they realise that eventually the cup of endurance runs over, and the human personality cries out, ‘I can take it no longer'”.
“While reserving a seat on each bus in her name may seem like a small gesture”, noted Bassett,”it recognizes the important contribution this courageous woman made so that people of all colors could be treated with dignity, respect and empathy”.
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The then-42-year-old was arrested for her civil disobedience on December 1, 1955 in Montgomery, Ala. “As someone said, the cup was full”.
