Black History Month: Rosa Parks

 Rosa Parks (1913-2005) 

"I would like to be known as a person who is concerned about freedom and equality and justice and prosperity for all people."

Born in 1913, Rosa Parks is the brave seamstress who on December 1, 1955 would not give up her bus seat to a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama.  Her courage helped end legal segregation for good and set the modern Civil Rights Movement in motion.

Rosa & Martin Luther King Jr.

Of her experience growing up, she said, “we didn’t have any civil rights. It was just a matter of survival, of existing from one day to the next. I remember going to sleep as a girl hearing the Klan ride at night and hearing a lynching and being afraid the house would burn down.” 

Rosa Parks is the first woman and the second African-American to have been given a state funeral – her casket was kept in the capital for two days following her death (something that only really happens to former presidents).  During her lifetime, she received the congressional metal of honor and the medal of freedom from former President Bill Clinton

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Her final quote is: "I do the very best I can to look upon life with optimism and hope and looking forward to a better day, but I don't think there is anything such as complete happiness. It pains me that there is still a lot of Klan activity and racism. I think when you say you're happy, you have everything that you need and everything that you want, and nothing more to wish for. I haven't reached that stage yet."

So who will continue the Journey Tomorrow...stay tune to Merick's Corner