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FEBRUARY 2006

We Stand in Tribute to Rosa Parks

Compiled by Liza Young

Rosa Parks—international icon of the civil rights movement—a seamstress at the time she unwaveringly refused to give up her seat to a white passenger, spun the threads of the beginning of the modern civil rights movement, according to many historians.

Parks’ courageous actions on that first day of December 1955 spurred the formation of the Montgomery Improvement Association, led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., which called for a boycott of the *city-owned bus company. The attention of the world was held as the boycott progressed and ultimately the Supreme Court ruled racial segregation on public transportation as illegal.

The philosophy of Parks’ mother, Leona McCauley—a teacher— as well as her early education played an instrumental role in the child’s activities. The theme of self-worth was underscored by McCauley as well as at the Montgomery Industrial School for girls, where Parks was enrolled at the age of 11.

Her passion for education and involvement in human rights activities dated back to early adulthood. She was a student at Teachers College for secondary education in Alabama and involved in the local chapter of the NAACP together with her husband, Raymond Parks, where they struggled to improve the condition of African Americans in the south.

Parks’ past heroic actions on the Montgomery bus led to personal hardship; she faced many employment difficulties ultimately continuing her work as a seamstress, and in 1965, she was hired as secretary to U.S. RepresentativeJohn Conyers in Detroit, Michigan, where she worked up to her retirement in 1988.

Parks’ legacy lives on today through the creation of the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development, founded in 1987 by Parks in honor of her husband, who passed away in 1977. The foundation holds annual programs for teens entitled “Pathways to Freedom,” where youth have the opportunity to learn the history of the civil rights movement.

The nation mourned the passing of Parks this past October, and homage was paid to her, placing her casket in the United States capitol rotunda, an honor generally bestowed upon Presidents.

Her actions leave an indelible print of all that is moral, dignified and valiant.#

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