Honored activist Rosa Parks died Oct. 24, but her legacy as the mother of the modern Civil Rights Movement will live for years to come.
On Dec. 1, 1955, Alabama police arrested Parks for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man. Her conviction led to a 381-day boycott of the Alabama bus system.
“Rosa Parks served as an inspiration to generations of African-Americans and all people of good will,” Bruce Gordon, president and chief executive officer of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said. “More than an icon, Mrs. Parks is symbolic of the thousands of courageous NAACP workers who fight for civil rights in their communities,” he said.
Parks, a seamstress and NAACP leader, refused to move for a white passenger when asked, an action that launched the Civil Rights Movement into full swing almost unintentionally.
“At the time I was arrested, I had no idea it would turn into this,” Parks told the Detroit Free Press more than 10 years ago. “It was just a day like any other day. The only thing that made it significant was that the masses of the people joined in.”
People all over the country will honor the life and works of Parks with a commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the bus boycott starting Dec. 1, the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute said in a statement about Parks’ death.
“Mrs. Parks was a woman who exhibited dignity with pride, courage with perseverance, and an ever-present quiet strength,” the institute said.
Parks lay in repose earlier this week in the Rotunda in Washington, D.C. She was the second black American and first woman to obtain such an honor.
She will be buried Wednesday in Detroit.
Parks’ show of defiance was an act of personal courage that moved millions, President George W. Bush said in a press conference.
“Rosa Parks’ example helped touch off the Civil Rights Movement and transformed America for the better,” Bush said.
Elliott Flaggs, vice president of Mississippi State University’s Black Student Alliance, said he believes Rosa Parks’ actions should be an inspiration to all people, not just young blacks.
“I think that what she did was a catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement,” Flaggs said. “When you look at it from an outside perspective, I personally think that not only did she set a standard for blacks but for all humanity.”
Parks showed through her simple act that sometimes one must defy the odds to achieve goals, Flaggs said.
“She didn’t do what she did with the intention of becoming an icon for the Civil Rights Movement, but later on she realized how important it was for the black society and all of mankind,” Flaggs said. “She was the prototype of what African-Americans should have done back then.”
The most important thing, Flagg said, is to remember the movement and not take for granted what leaders of the past did to change the future.
“We’re used to a society where we are more accepted than we were back then,” Flaggs said. “We need to realize that what she did was extraordinary for that time period, and people today should respect and honor her actions and let them be an example for the ordinary person.”
Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. reminded Americans that an action that may seem small to some can turn into something big later.
“Her major step led us to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the 1968 Open Housing Act-all of which helped make America a better nation,” Jackson said.
“She was a very small woman who had a big impact,” he added.