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