[Reader-list] Civil Rights Pioneer Rosa Parks Dies at 92

[anupam pachauri]

Civil Rights Pioneer Rosa Parks Dies at 92

DETROIT - Rosa Parks, whose refusal to give up her bus
seat to a white man sparked the modern civil rights
movement, died Monday evening. She was 92. 

Mrs. Parks died at her home during the evening of
natural causes, with close friends by her side, said
Gregory Reed, an attorney who represented her for the
past 15 years.

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.

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick said he felt a personal
tie to the civil rights icon: "She stood up by sitting
down. I'm only standing here because of her."

U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel (news, bio, voting record),
D-N.Y., lauded Mrs. Parks' mettle.

"I truly believe that there's a little bit of Rosa
Parks in all Americans who have the courage to say
enough is enough and stand up for what they believe
in," Rangel said. "She did such a small thing, but it
was so courageous for her as a humble person to do."

Speaking in 1992, Mrs. Parks 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.

Read further at:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051025/ap_on_re_us/obit_rosa_parks


Regards,
Anupam


		
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