[轉貼]US civil rights icon Parks dies

[吳]

看過sc的人都知道Rosa Parks這個人囉....她10/24日於家中病逝
以下節錄bbc

Rosa Parks, the black woman whose 1955 protest action in Alabama marked the start of the modern US civil rights movement, has died at the age of 92.
Mrs Parks' refusal to give up her seat to a white man on a bus prompted a mass black boycott of buses, organised by Baptist minister Martin Luther King Jr.
"She sat down in order that we all might stand up - and the walls of segregation came down," civil rights leader Jesse Jackson said.

她坐下是為了讓我們站起來以及種族隔離之牆倒塌~!!!
只是想說:有時候靜靜坐著的力量遠大於抗爭的力量 <---沉默的原子彈之類的

[micht]

more ....

US pays homage to civil rights icon Rosa Parks
Tue Oct 25, 2005 2:46 PM EDT

By Tom Brown
DETROIT (Reuters) - Tributes poured in on Tuesday honoring Rosa Parks, the black woman whose refusal to give a white man her seat on an Alabama bus 50 years ago sparked a protest that helped break racial segregation in America.

Parks, who died at 92, "transformed America for the better," with her act of defiance, said President George W. Bush. Sen. Barack Obama, an Illinois Democrat and sole black in the U.S. Senate, called her a genuine American hero.

Friends and family said Parks died of natural causes at her Detroit home on Monday evening after a visit by her physician and Elaine Steele, a longtime companion.

"It happened very quickly, very quickly," Anita Peek, a director, together with Steele, of the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development, told Reuters.

The Detroit-based youth education center was founded by Parks and Steele in 1987.

"They'd just finished talking," Peek said. "They turned around and went back to say good night and she was gone."

Parks was a 42-year-old seamstress for a Montgomery department store when she caught a bus in downtown Montgomery on December 1, 1955.

Her refusal to bow to the rules and give up her seat to James Blake, a white man who boarded the bus three stops after her, led to her arrest. But it also sparked a boycott of the Montgomery bus system by black residents led by a then-unknown Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

The boycott lasted 381 days, and legal challenges led to a U.S. Supreme Court decision that forced Montgomery to desegregate its bus system and put an end to "Jim Crow" laws separating blacks and whites at public facilities throughout the South.

GRIEF AND GRATITUDE

The tributes on Tuesday were tinged with grief as well as gratitude. By remaining seated on the racially segregated bus that day, many said, she let future generations of Americans stand up in dignity.
"She was very humble, she was soft spoken. But inside she had a determination that was quite fierce," said U.S. Rep. John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat and founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

"She has saint-like qualities," added Conyers, who Parks worked for as a receptionist and aide from 1965 to 1988.

"Today, America mourns the loss of a woman who changed our nation," said U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, the Illinois Republican who presented Parks with the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor in 1999.

"Rosa Parks was a genuine American hero. Through her courage and by her example, she helped lay the foundation for a country that could begin to live up to its creed," Obama said.

Dennis Archer, a former Democratic mayor of this predominantly black city said, "In my own view Rosa Parks deserves to, in effect, lie in state like any national leader because she has had a national impact on all of us."

Bush on Tuesday called Parks as "one of the most inspiring women of the 20th century."

"Rosa Parks' example helped touch off the civil rights movement and transformed America for the better," Bush said. "She will always have a special place in American history and our nation thinks of Rosa Parks and her loved ones today."

Parks "inspired a whole generation of people to fight for freedom," U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a news conference in Ottawa. "I think for all of us her inspiration will live on."

On Tuesday a black and purple shroud was draped over the bus believed to be the one on which Parks committed her historic act. The vehicle is on display at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich., beside a large picture of Parks.

&copy; Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.

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