View Full Version : Civil rights icon Rosa Parks dies at 92
jstreet
10-24-2005, 07:49 PM
(CNN) -- Rosa Parks, who helped trigger the civil rights movement in the 1950s, died Monday, her longtime friends told CNN. She was 92.
Parks inspired the civil rights movement when she refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama, in December 1955.
Her arrest triggered a 381-day boycott of the bus system by blacks that was organized by a young Baptist preacher, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and led to a court ruling desegregating public transportation in Montgomery.
Parks, a seamstress, facing regular threats and having lost her job, moved from Alabama to Michigan in 1957.
She joined the staff of U.S. Rep. John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, in 1965, championing civil liberties. Parks later earned the Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal.
Conyers, who first met Parks during the early days of the civil rights struggle, said Parks died in Detroit Monday evening.
"I think that she, as the mother of the new civil rights movement, has left an impact not just on the nation, but on the world," he told CNN in a telephone interview. "She was a real apostle of the non-violence movement."
Conyers said Parks worked on his original congressional staff when he first was elected to the House of Representatives in 1964.
He remembered her as someone who never raised her voice -- an eloquent voice of the civil rights movement.
"You treated her with deference because she was so quiet, so serene -- just a very special person," he said, adding that "there was only one" Rosa Parks.
Gregory Reed, a longtime friend and attorney, said Parks died between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. of natural causes. He called Parks "a lady of great courage."
Parks was the subject of the documentary "Mighty Times: The Legacy of Rosa Parks," which received a 2002 Oscar nomination for best documentary short.
In April, Parks and rap duo OutKast settled a lawsuit over the use of her name on a CD released in 1998. (Full story) http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/10/24/parks.obit/index.html
jstreet
10-24-2005, 07:54 PM
Odd way to end an obituary for someone we owe so much.
RIP Rosa, and thanks.
BigJon
10-24-2005, 08:06 PM
RIP
Woman helped change the world.
chadlnc
10-24-2005, 08:06 PM
Odd way to end an obituary for someone we owe so much.
RIP Rosa, and thanks.
I agree completely, that was the stupidest way to end a tribute column.
Rest in Peace
jstreet
10-24-2005, 08:10 PM
I agree completely, that was the stupidest way to end a tribute column.Agreed, hoping it was just an AP thing or something and they'll update.
WashPost has a 3 pager that's a lot classier: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/24/AR2005102402053.html
oblongmelon
10-24-2005, 08:13 PM
I'm sure the media will make a circus of her passing..she was a great woman.
ShawnLee
10-24-2005, 08:31 PM
RIP. How sadly powerful that this woman is now gone.
LPMiller
10-24-2005, 08:37 PM
i dunno why it's sad, I mean, nothing sad about dying at 92.
Sirrich3
10-24-2005, 08:47 PM
Rip
DarkFury
10-25-2005, 09:23 AM
Goodbye Ms. Parks... Hopefully they have a reserved seat for you on the bus in the afterlife. :D
Sweetpear
10-25-2005, 09:39 AM
Goodbye Ms. Parks... Hopefully they have a reserved seat for you on the bus in the afterlife. :D
That was very sweet :neartears
RIP Rosa
nickel
10-25-2005, 10:29 AM
RIP Ms. Parks
http://www.1lovecards.com/ecards/images/flowers/PH01175J.jpg
she'll be missed for all she did ........RIP
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Video/050811/p_voterights_rights_050811.vsmall.jpghttp://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photos/051024/051024_rosa_hmed_8p.h2.jpg
Goodbye Ms. Parks... Hopefully they have a reserved seat, in the front, for you on the bus in the afterlife. :D
Fixed it.
DarkFury
10-25-2005, 01:25 PM
Fixed it.
Ummm... thanks... (Aren't all "reserved" seats on public busses in the front... like where the "handicapped" people sit.) :D
Ummm... thanks... (Aren't all "reserved" seats on public busses in the front... like where the "handicapped" people sit.) :D
Not all the public busses I've been on. Like the older local Torrance (where I live) buses; handicapped people have to get on from the second entrance, because that is where the little elevator is.
DarkFury
10-25-2005, 02:55 PM
Not all the public busses I've been on. Like the older local Torrance (where I live) buses; handicapped people have to get on from the second entrance, because that is where the little elevator is.
Rosa don't wanna ride the "short bus". :heh:
captainhook
10-25-2005, 06:49 PM
RIP to her. the legacy lives on.
Rosa don't wanna ride the "short bus". :heh:
She would have looked great in one of their helmets...
DarkFury
10-26-2005, 07:37 AM
She would have looked great in one of their helmets...
ok.. that's enough Nija... :2far:
Jane83
10-26-2005, 10:25 AM
puhahaa its too early for this..i just woke up
MikeD
10-26-2005, 10:27 AM
puhahaa its too early for this..i just woke up
That birthday drinking binge got the best of you, eh? :cheers:
Markel
10-28-2005, 12:18 PM
Now here's a class act by the politicians, for once.
Link (http://apnews.myway.com//article/20051028/D8DH5SN84.html)
Rosa Parks to Lie in Honor at Capitol
Oct 28, 1:22 PM (ET)
By KEN THOMAS
WASHINGTON (AP) - Rosa Parks, the seamstress whose act of defiance on a public bus a half-century ago helped spark the civil rights movement, will join presidents and war heroes who have been honored in death with a public viewing in the Capitol Rotunda.
Parks, who died Monday in Detroit at age 92, also will be the first woman to lie in honor in the Rotunda, the vast circular room under the Capitol dome.
The House on Friday passed by voice vote a resolution allowing Parks to be honored in the Capitol on Sunday and Monday "so that the citizens of the United States may pay their last respects to this great American." The Senate approved the resolution Thursday night.
It will be only the fifth time in the past two decades that a person has either lain in honor or in state in the Rotunda. The last to lie in state was President Reagan after his death in June last year.
Parks' refusal to give up her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Ala., in 1955 led to a 381-day boycott of the city's bus system and helped ignite the modern civil rights movement.
"The movement that Rosa Parks helped launch changed not only our country, but the entire world, as her actions gave hope to every individual fighting for civil and human rights," said Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada. "We now can honor her in a way deserving of her contributions and legacy."
In most cases, only presidents, members of Congress and military commanders have been allowed to lie in the Rotunda.
Parks would be the first woman and second black American to receive the accolade. Jacob J. Chestnut, one of two Capitol police officers fatally shot in 1998, was the first black American to lie in honor, said Senate historian Richard Baker.
Parks also would be the second non-governmental official to be commemorated that way. The remains of Pierre L'Enfant - the French-born architect who was responsible for the design of Washington, D.C. - stopped at the Capitol in 1909, long after his death in 1825.
"Rosa Parks is not just a national hero, she is the embodiment of our social and human conscience and the spark that lit the flame of liberty and equality for African Americans and minority groups in this country and around the globe," said Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn.
Officials with the Rosa & Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development in Detroit said at one point that Parks would lie in repose at the Lincoln Memorial. The National Park Service, however, said those plans were never formalized.
Lila Cabbil, the institute's president emeritus, said Thursday the information was released prematurely and the foundation and the Parks family were working with Reps. John Conyers and Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, D-Mich., and the White House to make arrangements to have a viewing in Washington.
The Capitol event was one of several planned to honor the civil rights pioneer. Parks will lie in repose Saturday at the St. Paul AME Church in Montgomery, Ala., and a memorial service will be held at the church Sunday morning.
Following her viewing in the Capitol, a memorial service was planned for Monday at Metropolitan AME Church in Washington.
From Monday night until Wednesday morning, Parks will lie in repose at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit. Her funeral will be Wednesday at Greater Grace Temple Church in Detroit.
Officials in Detroit and Montgomery, Ala., meanwhile, said the first seats of their buses would be reserved as a tribute to Parks' legacy until her funeral next week. Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick put a black ribbon Thursday on the first passenger seat of one of about 200 buses where seats will be reserved.
"We cannot do enough to pay tribute to someone who has so positively impacted the lives of millions across the world," Kilpatrick said.
dougadam
10-29-2005, 03:33 PM
An awesome lady Rosa Parks.
in case anyone's interested
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8004316/ (RosaPark'sFuneral) Rosa Park's Funeral
:bump:
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