Pioneer of civil rights was 'a real person, too'

By Richard Willing, USA TODAY

The Rosa Parks that Claudette Colvin knew in Montgomery, Ala., in 1955, was serious and shy, a soft-spoken woman who often had difficulty holding the attention of Colvin, then 16, and the other teenagers in the NAACP youth group that Parks led.

"I wasn't surprised that she was arrested" for refusing to give up her seat on a city bus to a white man in December 1955, says Colvin, who had been arrested for the same offense nine months earlier and believes she was Parks' model. "She was a person who believed we could change things for ourselves. But to see her held up as this great symbol of the civil rights movement, that felt kind of strange. ... Sometimes I wanted to shout, 'Hey, that's Mrs. Parks. That's a real person, too.' "

Rosa Louise McCauley Parks, public symbol and private — very private — person, was remembered by those who knew her in both roles Tuesday, a day after she died in her Detroit apartment at age 92. (Related: Rosa Parks dies)

The public tributes recalled her simple act that touched off a 381-day boycott of Montgomery's buses, organized by a previously little-known preacher, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The boycott, which ended after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Montgomery's segregation policy in 1956, is marked by historians such as David Garrow as the beginning of the modern civil rights movement.

Her eulogizers focused on how Parks, then a 42-year-old seamstress, lit the

spark that became a blaze.

President Bush called her "one of the most inspiring women of the 20th century."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a black woman from Birmingham, Ala., was two weeks past her first birthday on the day Parks was arrested. At a news conference in Ottawa on Tuesday, Rice said Parks "inspired a whole generation of people to fight for freedom."

African-American political leaders noted the symbolism of Parks' act.

"In many ways, history is marked as 'before' and 'after' Rosa Parks," civil rights leader Jesse Jackson said. "She sat down in order that we all might stand up, and the walls of segregation came down."

Parks' act was simple, but its impact, others noted, was profound.

"Other than the Rev. Martin Luther King, no other person has had such a role in changing (the African-American) vision of our community and our country," Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick said.

Parks' prominence endures, said historian John Hope Franklin, because the memory of her act speaks to the widest possible audience.

"Her determination (was) to stand up, not merely for herself, not merely for all women, not merely for African-Americans but for all Americans," said Franklin, historian emeritus at Duke University.

Friends and family members recalled a woman who, while never completely comfortable with her celebrity, was willing to use it as a teaching tool. "She was private in an old-fashioned way, but she was always willing to talk about the issues, especially to younger people," said Rhea McCauley, one of Parks' 13 nieces and nephews. Parks, a widow, had no children.

U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., who employed Parks as a receptionist in his Detroit office from 1965 to 1988, said she "never sought the limelight."

"Everybody wanted to explain Rosa Parks and wanted to teach Rosa Parks, but Rosa Parks wasn't very interested in that," Conyers said. "She wanted them to understand the government and to understand their rights and the Constitution that people are still trying to perfect today."

Reluctant celebrity

Sometimes, the attention could be unwelcome. May Doss, like Parks a member of St. Matthew AME Church in Detroit, remembers congregants making "a fuss" over an embarrassed Parks when Parks and other church deaconesses assisted at Sunday services wearing distinctive white dresses, gloves and pillbox hats.

Parks might have been uneasy with her subsequent celebrity, but she was prepared for her date with history. Born in Tuskegee, Ala., and reared in Pine Level, Ala., she took an interest in what would come to be known as civil rights at a young age. In her 1992 autobiography, My Story, Parks noted that a grandfather, Sylvester Edwards, had made a point of not addressing all white men as "Mister," as was the practice in his day.

Parks first tried to sit in the whites-only section of a Montgomery bus in 1943 but was shouted down by fellow black passengers, she told The Detroit News in a 1990 interview. Her second attempt came after she had studied at an integrated summer school.

After her arrest, the NAACP asked Parks to fight the segregation policy in court, and she readily agreed. But the lawsuit that ultimately undid the policy was filed by Colvin, her former student, and others.

Laid off from her sewing job and beset by harassing phone calls, Parks moved to Detroit in 1957 and, for the most part, faded into obscurity.

A co-worker, Elaine Steele, helped Parks found a not-for-profit institute that teaches life skills and the history of the American civil rights movement to young people. After retiring from Conyers' office, Parks devoted most of her time to that.

Parks gradually re-emerged as a public figure in the 1980s, lending her name to awards and scholarships. By the time she died, she had been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal and more than 40 honorary degrees. Streets, parks, libraries and schools across the USA were named for her.

Wherever she went, she was pressed to retell the story of her arrest. She always obliged, even while complaining to a Detroit News reporter in 1990, "My life did consist of more than being arrested on a bus."

Public viewings and funeral services tentatively are scheduled in Montgomery on Saturday and Sunday and in Detroit next Tuesday and Wednesday, said U.S. Appeals Court Judge Damon Keith, a longtime Parks friend. She will be buried in Detroit.

Contributing: Wire reports

Feb. 4, 1913: Rosa McCauley is born in Tuskegee, Ala.

1932: She marries Raymond Parks, 29, a barber.

1943: Rosa Parks is elected secretary of the Montgomery, Ala., branch of the NAACP.

1954: In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka , the U.S. Supreme Court rules that segregation in public schools is unconstitutional. It paves the way for broad desegregation.

Dec. 1, 1955: In Montgomery, Parks refuses to give up her seat on a city bus to a white man, as required by local law. She is arrested.

Dec. 5: Parks is fined $14. More than 5,000 people pack Holt Street Baptist Church in Montgomery and pass a resolution backing a bus boycott.

Jan. 30, 1956: The Montgomery home of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. is bombed. Two days later, groups backing Parks file a federal lawsuit challenging segregation on buses.

June 4: A panel of U.S. judges strikes down Montgomery's bus segregation laws.

Nov. 13: The Supreme Court rules segregation of city buses is unconstitutional. The boycott ends about a month later, after federal injunctions enforce the court's ruling.

January 1957: King helps establish the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. It becomes a key organizer of the civil rights movement.

1957: Parks and her husband move to Detroit.

Aug. 28, 1963: Parks joins March on Washington, where King gives his "I Have a Dream" speech before about 250,000 at the Lincoln Memorial.

1965: Parks begins working for Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich. She retires in 1988, after helping to make Martin Luther King Jr. Day a national holiday.

1977: Raymond Parks dies.

1979: Rosa Parks receives Spingarn Award, the NAACP's highest honor for civil rights.

1996: She receives highest U.S. civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Three years later, she receives Congressional Gold Medal.

Dec. 1, 2000: Rosa Parks Museum and Library opens at Troy State University-Montgomery.

Oct. 24, 2005: Parks dies at 92.

Montgomery Advertiser

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-10-25-parks-remembered_x.htm