Extensions of Remarks 36767 Extensions of Remarks
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December 16, 1985 EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS 36767 EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS A SALUTE TO ROSA PARKS 30 YEARS ON, MONTGOMERY STILL INSPIRES ing me what had happened. But this was Us clearly a crisis, and I was glad he had ac <By Coretta Scott King) cepted the position. At the mass rally later HON. LOUIS STOKES In early December of 1955, I was recover that night, he was greeted by 5,000 jubilant OF OHIO ing from the birth of my first child a short black citizens. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES time before, and the last thing on my mind It took more than a year to desegregate was getting involved in a social revolution. Montgomery's buses, but Martin's first Monday, December 16, 1985 Mr. husband, the Rev. Martin Luther speech as a civil rights leader set the tone Mr. STOKES. Mr. Speaker, last week, an King Jr., had just refused the presidency of and tempo of every campaign he led from the Montgomery, Ala., NAACP. Having re Montgomery to Memphis, Tenn. Thirty outstanding miniseries which ran for 3 cently finished his PhD dissertation, he felt years later, it continues to inspire those days on WXYZ-TV, Detroit, Ml, chronicled he should concentrate on implementing the working to improve human rights in South the great contribution Rosa Parks has ambitious program he had planned for his Africa. made to American history. pastorate of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Martin concluded his speech that evening December 1 was the 30th anniversary of Church. I was much relieved and looked for with these words: "If you will protest coura an incident which sparked a revolution of ward to starting our family in the relative geously, and yet with dignity and Christian conscience and policy in this Nation. On calm of a small Southern city. love, future historians will say, 'There lived December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, AL, a However, what Martin would later call the a great people-a black people-who inject zeitgeist of history had descended on Mont black woman, Rosa Parks, changed the ed new meaning and dignity into the veins gomery in the will of a 42-year-old seam of civilization.' This is our challenge and our course of history when she refused to move stress, who had boarded a bus after a long overwhelming responsibility." to the back of a bus and give her seat to a day of working and shopping. The woman: white man. Because of segregation laws, Rosa Parks; the date: Dec. 1, 1955. black people in Montgomery, AL, and in The bus was crowded, and Parks sat down ROSA PARKS-THIRTY YEARS A RELUCTANT at the beginning of the section reserved for HEROINE-SHE KEPT HER SEAT AND many other parts of the South, were forced CHANGED A NATION to live as second-class citizens. blacks. At the next stop, more whites got on and the driver ordered her to give her seat The law was strictly enforced. Acts of de <By Remer Tyson> to a white man. As she said later, "I was just Thirty years ago today, Rosa Parks was fiance were considered to be crimes. plain tired and my feet hurl" Her cup of en Therefore, for her act of defiance, Rosa having a bad day in Montgomery, Ala., and durance had run over, and she refused to making history. Parks, a 42-year-old seamstress, was arrest move. The driver called a policeman, who After working until past 5 p.m. as a $25-a ed. She was put on trial and convicted. arrested her. Later, she was bailed out by week seamstress in a downtown department But, this act had still another and more E.D. Dixon, a prominent member of Mont store, she was arrested on her way home for permanent consequence. Tired of the segre gomery's black community. Like Parks, he also had had enough, and soon telephones refusing to give up her seat on a city bus to gation and humiliation they experienced in were ringing all over town. a white man. Police took her to the city jail, the South, black residents formed the Although 70 percent of its passengers and she had to wait for friends to post her Montgomery Improvement Association and were black, the Montgomery bus line hu bond. The delay made her late cooking launched a 381-day boycott of the bus miliated and insulted them on a daily basis. supper. system in Montgomery in response to Rosa The first seats on all buses were reserved for But the troubles that came Dec. 1, 1955, to the soft-spoken, strong-willed Alabama Parks' arrest. They chose Dr. Martin whites. Blacks had to pay their fares at the front of the bus, get off and walk to the woman greatly accelerated the elimination Luther King, Jr., a young charismatic min of the South's segregation codes and cata ister, to be the leader of the association rear door to board again. Sometimes the bus would drive off without them after they had pulted into international influence a young and boycott. paid the fare, which was considered a great Baptist preacher, Dr. Martin Luther King, The boycott was a success. One year joke by the drivers. Jr. later, after considering the appeal of Mrs. The Women's Political Council in the Appointed "mother of the civil rights Parks, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned black community suggested a one-day bus movement," Mrs. Parks, now 72, lives, works the 1896 Plessy versus Ferguson decision boycott, and Nixon began to organize it. and copes in Detroit, as she has for 27 years. which has been used to legally justify seg Martin joined in the organizing efforts, and She carries with her the honor and the I was drafted to make phone calls and take burden placed by the nation and the news regation in Montgomery and the South. media on an American heroine. In an inter Encouraged by the victory in Montgom messages. We woke early Monday morning, Dec. 5, view last week, she expressed concern about ery, black residents and people committed to watch for the 6 o'clock bus that stopped young people, lamented the high level of vi to equality for all citizens banded together in front of our house. Headlights blazing olence, and spoke of hope that people of in the civil rights movement. At the fore through the December darkness, the bus ar goodwill can bring about peace, prosperity front of this great movement was the rived right on time. Although it was usually and happiness. leader of the Montgomery Improvement full of black passengers, we were elated to Somewhat by chance 30 years ago, swell Association-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. see that it was empty. The next bus was ing, rebellious forces against racial discrimi empty as well. nation put her in the thick of a storm Today, 30 years later, major victories in sweeping across Dixie, changing the region the struggle for civil rights for all Ameri All over Montgomery, blacks were walking to work. Some organized car pools. A few forever. cans have been won. We have to thank even rode mules and horse-drawn buggies. Five days after Mrs. Parks' arrest, Mont Rosa Parks for her act of defiance and Others hitchhiked or took discount-fare gomery blacks began a 381-day bus boycott. courage which helped to strengthen the taxis we had organized, but they did not Her contested conviction in the case result civil rights movement and pricked the con ride the buses. ed in a 1956 U.S. Supreme Court opinion science of America. Later that morning, Parks was convicted that reversed an 1896 court decision, Plessy Because of her pivotal role in the history of disobeying the city's segregation ordi vs. Ferguson, the cornerstone of the South's of this Nation, I would like to share with nance. She was fined $10 plus court costs. "separate but equal" post-Reconstruction her attorney filed an appeal. laws, which in reality had kept blacks sepa my colleagues newspaper articles which ap At an afternoon planning meeting, Martin rate but unequal. peared earlier this month on Rosa Parks was unanimously elected president of the At the boycott's beginning, King was a 26- and her role in the history of this Nation. I protest group, the Montgomery Improve year-old, little-known pastor of the Dexter ask my colleagues to join with me in salut ment Association. When he came home that Avenue Baptist Church, located next to Ala ing her. evening, he was a little nervous about tell- bama's state Capitol, where Jefferson Davis e This "bullet" symbol identifies statements or insertions which are not spoken by the Member of the Senate on the floor. Boldface type indicates words inserted or appended, rather than spoken, by a Member of the House on the floor. 36768 EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS December 16, 1985 had stood to take the oath as president of ble. It is heartbreaking to see the violence CFrom the Christian Science Monitor, Nov. the Confederate States of America in 1861. being done to people by other people." 29, 1985) By the boycott's end, King had emerged Mrs. Parks and her husband moved from ROSA PARKS TOOK HER STAND FOR CIVIL as the leader of a non-violent crusade that Montgomery to Detroit in August 1957, RIGHTS-BY SITTING DOWN-SHE MOVED TO spread across the nation and in 1964 won after she could not find a job in Montgom FRONT OF Bus AND INTEGRATION FOLLOWED him the Nobel Peace Prize.