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.#
