Civil Rights Pioneer Rosa Parks Dies at 92

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Civil Rights Pioneer Rosa Parks Dies at 92

 

By BREE FOWLER, Associated Press Writer 1 minute ago

 

DETROIT - Rosa Lee Parks, whose refusal to give up her

bus seat to a white man sparked the modern civil

rights movement, died Monday. She was 92.

 

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Mrs. Parks died at her home of natural causes, said

Karen Morgan, a spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. John Conyers

(news, bio, voting record), D-Mich.

 

Mrs. Parks was 42 when she committed an act of

defiance in 1955 that was to change the course of

American history and earn her the title " mother of the

civil rights movement. "

 

At that time, Jim Crow laws in place since the

post-Civil War Reconstruction required separation of

the races in buses, restaurants and public

accommodations throughout the South, while legally

sanctioned racial discrimination kept blacks out of

many jobs and neighborhoods in the North.

 

The Montgomery, Ala., seamstress, an active member of

the local chapter of the

National Association for the Advancement of Colored

People, was riding on a city bus Dec. 1, 1955, when a

white man demanded her seat.

 

Mrs. Parks refused, despite rules requiring blacks to

yield their seats to whites. Two black Montgomery

women had been arrested earlier that year on the same

charge, but Mrs. Parks was jailed. She also was fined

$14.

 

Speaking in 1992, she said history too often maintains

" that my feet were hurting and I didn't know why I

refused to stand up when they told me. But the real

reason of my not standing up was I felt that I had a

right to be treated as any other passenger. We had

endured that kind of treatment for too long. "

 

Her arrest triggered a 381-day boycott of the bus

system organized by a then little-known Baptist

minister, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who later

earned the Nobel Peace Prize for his work.

 

" At the time I was arrested I had no idea it would

turn into this, " Mrs. Parks said 30 years later. " It

was just a day like any other day. The only thing that

made it significant was that the masses of the people

joined in. "

 

The Montgomery bus boycott, which came one year after

the

U.S. Supreme Court's landmark declaration that

separate schools for blacks and whites were

" inherently unequal, " marked the start of the modern

civil rights movement.

 

The movement culminated in the 1964 federal Civil

Rights Act, which banned racial discrimination in

public accommodations.

 

After taking her public stand for civil rights, Mrs.

Parks had trouble finding work in Alabama. Amid

threats and harassment, she and her husband Raymond

moved to Detroit in 1957. She worked as an aide in

Conyers' Detroit office from 1965 until retiring Sept.

30, 1988. Raymond Parks died in 1977.

 

Mrs. Parks became a revered figure in Detroit, where a

street and middle school were named for her and a

papier-mache likeness of her was featured in the

city's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

 

Mrs. Parks said upon retiring from her job with

Conyers that she wanted to devote more time to the

Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development.

The institute, incorporated in 1987, is devoted to

developing leadership among Detroit's young people and

initiating them into the struggle for civil rights.

 

" Rosa Parks: My Story " was published in February 1992.

In 1994 she brought out " Quiet Strength: The Faith,

the Hope and the Heart of a Woman Who Changed a

Nation, " and in 1996 a collection of letters called

" Dear Mrs. Parks: A Dialogue With Today's Youth. "

 

She was among the civil rights leaders who addressed

the Million Man March in October 1995.

 

In 1996, she received the Presidential Medal of

Freedom, awarded to civilians making outstanding

contributions to American life. In 1999, she was

awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the nation's

highest civilian honor.

 

Mrs. Parks received dozens of other awards, ranging

from induction into the Alabama Academy of Honor to an

NAACP Image Award for her 1999 appearance on CBS'

" Touched by an Angel. "

 

The Rosa Parks Library and Museum opened in November

2000 in Montgomery. The museum features a 1955-era bus

and a video that recreates the conversation that

preceded Parks' arrest.

 

" Are you going to stand up? " the bus driver asked.

 

" No, " Parks answered.

 

" Well, by God, I'm going to have you arrested, " the

driver said.

 

" You may do that, " Parks responded.

 

Mrs. Parks' later years were not without difficult

moments.

 

In 1994, Mrs. Parks' home was invaded by a 28-year-old

man who beat her and took $53. She was treated at a

hospital and released. The man, Joseph Skipper,

pleaded guilty, blaming the crime on his drug problem.

 

The Parks Institute struggled financially since its

inception. The charity's principal activity — the

annual Pathways to Freedom bus tour taking students to

the sites of key events in the civil rights movement —

routinely cost more money than the institute could

raise.

 

Mrs. Parks lost a 1999 lawsuit that sought to prevent

the hip-hop duo OutKast from using her name as the

title of a Grammy-nominated song. In 2000, she

threatened legal action against an Oklahoma man who

planned to auction Internet domain name rights to

http://www.rosaparks.com.

 

After losing the OutKast lawsuit, attorney Gregory

Reed, who represented Mrs. Parks, said his client " has

once again suffered the pains of exploitation. " A

later suit against OutKast's record company was

settled out of court.

 

She was born Rosa Louise McCauley on Feb. 4, 1913, in

Tuskegee, Ala. Family illness interrupted her high

school education, but after she married Raymond Parks

in 1932, he encouraged her and she earned a diploma in

1934. He also inspired her to become involved in the

NAACP.

 

Looking back in 1988, Mrs. Parks said she worried that

black young people took legal equality for granted.

 

Older blacks, she said " have tried to shield young

people from what we have suffered. And in so doing, we

seem to have a more complacent attitude.

 

" We must double and redouble our efforts to try to say

to our youth, to try to give them an inspiration, an

incentive and the will to study our heritage and to

know what it means to be black in America today. "

 

At a celebration in her honor that same year, she

said: " I am leaving this legacy to all of you ... to

bring peace, justice, equality, love and a fulfillment

of what our lives should be. Without vision, the

people will perish, and without courage and

inspiration, dreams will die — the dream of freedom

and peace. "

 

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