Rest In Peace Rosa Parks :'(

"The Mother Of Civil Rights"

Rosa Parks

(Nee: Rosa Louise McCauley)
February 4, 1913 to October 24th, 2005.


"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,"

~ U.S. Rep. John ConyersA Loss

Rosa Parks, the black woman who refused to give up her bus seat to a white man and in turn sparked a revolution in American race relations 50 years ago, died last night. She died in her sleep at home, said lawyer Shirley Kaigler.

Parks, known as the mother of the civil rights movement, was a 42-year-old seamstress when she caught a bus in downtown Montgomery, Alabama on Dec. 1st 1955.

She paid the 10-cent fare in front, then reboarded the bus in back (as black riders were required to do) taking a seat in the first row of the section reserved for "coloureds."

Three stops after she got on, a white man boarded and had to stand. To make room for him to sit alone (which were the rules at the time) driver James Blake told Parks and three other black riders to give up their seats. The other riders complied. Parks did not. The police were called and Rosa was arrested and charged.

While Parks was not the first black Montgomery bus rider to be arrested for failing to give up a seat, she was the first to challenge the law. Parks and her husband had been active with local civil rights groups for years. Groups that were looking for a test case to fight the city's segregation laws.

Rosa ended up being convicted of breaking the law and received a $10 fine, along with $4 in court costs. That same day a group of blacks founded the Montgomery Improvement Association. They appointed a little known minister their leader, Martin Luther King Jr. The young pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church lead the bus boycott that lasted 381 days and financially crippled the transit system.

---> In the end legal challenges led to a US Supreme Court decision that forced Montgomery to desegregate its bus system. Effectively putting an end to laws separating blacks and whites, at public facilities throughout the South.

Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin released this statement on Tuesday:

"Rosa Parks was an icon, not just for minority communities in the American south, or for women, but for all of humanity the world over,"

"Though Ms. Parks spoke in the quietest of tones, her voice will continue to ring loud as a symbol of courage, of the strength of the human spirit and of the need to continue the fight against inhumanity in all of its manifestations."

**I have never heard a politician speak more truely than at this time.**

A Life Well Lived and Never Forgotten

Rest Well And In Peace Brave Lady

I've been neglecting you

I'm sorry for that. You see too much has been happening in the world the last few months and I've found myself not wanting to discuss any of it.

I feel so heavy whenever some new disaster hits, whether it is man made or nature made.
There's Katrina, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the ongoing fighting/suicide bombings in Isreal and else where. Not to mention North America's own home grown criminal element.

It's funny that the USA feels that they have the right to go in to another country and impose what they think is the right way to live, yet their own back yard is teeming with angry, violent, agression. And the umseemly acts the commit on eachother? How can they claim to know what is the "right" way to live? To run a country? To fashion society? Children are being (statutory) raped and then married off to their rapist at 14 years of age, women kill their newborns and toddlers at will, men kill doctors for performing abortions, teachers are taking sexual advantage of their students, domestice violence and divorce are rampant.

Oh no no no.... do not get me wrong. The US is not the only country with these problems. I know that. Canada has it's own set of issues, as do the UK and other European nations. I do not solely point the finger at the US. I guess what I am driving at is perhaps we need to look in and clean up our own backyards. You need to start at home. Only then can you go out and touch the rest of the world in a positive way.

I think that the problem is, in part, that if you look in to your own backyard you have to see the ugliness that is a part of you. And with ego (which is where all bad things lead back too) the way that it is, people do not want to take ownership of the nasty part that is them. No one wants to admit that as a society they are part of the reason for the failure.

If a teen is bad. Blame the parents. If an adult has failed in life. Blame the parents and the schools. Why should they be the only ones to blame? "It takes a village to raise a child" that is what my ancestors believed. And communitees took this seriously and I venture to say that there was a lot less needly violence back then. Of course I am not living in LaLa Land. I know that mankind has always been violent. But back then it was out of necessity to hunt, to protect yourself, your family, your way of life or your land.

I don't know if I make a lot of sense right now. Forgive me if I don't. I have so many things rolling around in my head that it's hard to put down in a sensical way. I tend to go off in different directions of thought in very short periods of time.