President Obama and lawmakers dedicated the Rosa Parks Staute at the Capitol today at 11 a.m. EST/10 A.M. CT.
Updated
No, he didn’t mention “DJANGO.”
Ms. Parks is the FIRST African-American woman to have a statue in her honor at the Capitol.
Bio: Rosa Parks was born on February 4, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama. She is often referred to as the “Mother of the Civil Rights Movement”. Her arrest for refusing to give up her seat on a bus triggered the 1955-1956 Montgomery bus boycotts and set in motion the test case for the desegregation of public transportation.On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, the arrest of Ms. Parks, for disregarding an order to surrender her bus seat to a white passenger galvanized a growing movement to desegregate public transportation, and marked a historic turning point in the African American battle for civil rights.Rosa Louise Parks was the granddaughter of former slaves and the daughter of James McCauley, a carpenter, and Leona McCauley, a rural schoolteacher.
She grew up in Montgomery, Alabama, where she attended the all-black Alabama State College. In 1932 Parks married Raymond Parks, a barber.In the early 1950s Parks found work as a tailor’s assistant at the Montgomery Fair Department Store. She had a part-time job working as a seamstress for Virginia and Clifford Durr, a white liberal couple who encouraged Parks in her civil rights work. Six months before her famous protest, Rosa Parks received a scholarship to attend a workshop on school integration for community leaders at the Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tennessee, and spent several weeks there.
On December 1, 1955, Parks took her seat in the front of the “colored section” of a Montgomery bus. When the driver asked Parks and three other black riders to relinquish their seats to whites, Parks refused (the others complied. The driver called the police, and Parks was arrested. That night she was released on a $100 bond.
On the evening of December 5, thousands of protesters crowded into the Holt Street Baptist Church to create the Montgomery Improvement Association. What was planned as a day-long bus boycott swelled to 381 days when the District Court ruled declaring segregated seating on buses unconstitutional, a decision later upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Family members of Rosa Parks gather for the unveiling of a commemorative STAMP
This video deserves a repost here, because, if I have to tell you why…. we’re not even close to being there yet.
WE’RE NOT GOING TO THE BACK OF THE BUS.
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The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks [Hardcover]
BUY IT AND READ IT
http://www.amazon.com/Rebellious-Life-Mrs-Rosa-Parks/dp/0807050474
Barack Obama bestows rare honour for the life of Rosa Parks
Mr Obama said Parks has taken her rightful place among those who have shaped the course of US history.
“We do well by placing a statue of her here, but we can do no greater honour to her memory than to carry forward the power of her principle and a courage born of conviction,” he said.
Parks was arrested for not giving up her seat, touching off the Montgomery bus boycott that brought a young clergyman, the Rev Martin Luther King, Jr. to national prominence as a civil rights leader.
Parks becomes the first black woman to be honoured with a full-length statue in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall. Her statue joins a bust of another black woman, abolitionist Sojourner Truth, which sits in the Capitol Visitors Centre.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/barack-obama-bestows-rare-honour-for-the-life-of-rosa-parks/story-e6frg6so-1226587369979
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this is a wonderful post. thanks for bringing it to us.
MRS. PARKS was a true American heroine.
Damn right; and Ms. Parks was much more than a Seamtress, so much more.
look at Ms. Rosa; she’s saying “YOU DID GOOD, SON.”
YES!
Michael E. Dyson is rocking like he’s got he Holy Spirit moving through him LOL C-SPAN
The statue of Rosa Parks is striking.
Come with Mr. President. Do Ms. Rosa Parks proud!
Ms. Parks is the FIRST African-American woman to have a statue in her honor at the Capitol.
***goosebumps***
Oh dear God, Speaker Boehner is slurring and stammering all over the place. Disgraceful.
Good grief! Ugh!
John Boehner –>
LOL Girl, he was not SOBER, no way in hell.
We’re NOT going to the back of the bus!
HELL NAW And Ms. Parks was so much more than a seamtress.
No Donna, we’re NEVER going to the back of the bus, unless we chose to. Today is a special day for America. Rosa Parks sat down on that bus, and stood up for a basic right to SIT DOWN on a bus seat she paid to ride on.