 |
|||||||||
 |
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
November
7, 2005 
VOL.
43, NO. 19Oakland,
CA
Rosa Parks remembered as woman of faith
TUSKEGEE, Ala.—People who knew civil rights pioneer
Rosa Parks before her arrest on a Montgomery bus in 1955 remember her
as a quiet seamstress whose faith in God gave her strength, confidence
and authority.
“She was always very serene, very calm and quiet. But there was
a fire smoldering under all of that quietness,” said E.D. Nixon
Jr., 77, an actor and singer whose stage name is Nick LaTour.
Nixon, son of the late E.D. Nixon, who helped organize the bus boycott
that followed Parks’ arrest, said Parks was a fine “Christian
lady.”
“I think her faith had a lot to do with her demeanor, her personality,
because when you have certain beliefs, you’re comfortable with a
lot of situations. It gives you confidence,” he said.
Nixon and others praised Parks at memorial services, Oct. 26, that drew
a few hundred people to the town square and to the municipal complex in
Tuskegee, where Parks was born in 1913. She died Oct. 24 in Detroit, where
she’d lived since 1957.
Nixon said Parks and his father worked together for years in the NAACP.
Before her arrest, Parks had been secretary of Montgomery’s chapter
since 1943.
Parks’ arrest, trial and conviction in December 1955 for refusing
to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus to a white man sparked a 381-day
bus boycott by black people. It lasted until the U.S. Supreme Court ordered
the integration of city buses. The boycott helped launch the modern civil
rights movement.
“She walked with authority,” said Farrell J. Duncombe, 63,
pastor of Washington Chapel AME Church in Tuskegee. “I saw her as
one who loved the Lord, one who loved people and who was not reluctant
to share what she had with others.” Parks was Duncombe’s Sunday
school teacher at St. Paul AME Church in Montgomery, and his father was
the pastor.
Fred Gray, who was one of Parks’ attorneys after her arrest, said,
“If Mrs. Parks were here today, she would remind us that the struggle
has not ended, that racism is still a major problem in this country, that
the disparity that exists between the majority and the minority in economics,
in health care, in education, all are problems that need to be resolved.
“If she has left us a legacy at all,” he said, it is: “We
must finish the task.”
Other pastors, politicians and admirers of Parks gathered, Oct. 31, at
an African Methodist Episcopal Church a few blocks from the White House
in Washington, D.C. to add their memorial tributes to Parks, whose casket
laid in honor beneath the U.S. Capitol rotunda, Oct. 30-31, the first
woman to be so honored. Parks received the Congressional Gold Medal in
1999.
“We are here not because Rosa Parks died,” said African Methodist
Episcopal Church Bishop Adam Jefferson Richardson, “but because
she lived graciously, effectively and purposefully, touching the lives
of billions.”
Dorothy Height, president of the National Council
of Negro Women, said her friend and colleague in the civil rights movement
lived out the message “You are a child of God. You can make a difference.”
Julian Bond, chairman of the NAACP, a civil rights organization in which
Parks was actively involved, recalled how her simple act transcended the
globe.
“Mrs. Parks was much, much more than the bus woman,” he said.
“Rosa Parks shifted the gears of the universe all her life. Now
she belongs to the universe. Thank you, Sister Rosa. Thank you, Rosa Parks.”
Politicians, representing both major parties, and personalities joined
in praising Parks for her years of service to the country. Standing behind
Parks’ closed, wooden casket was a portrait of her that melded her
image from more recent times with one at the time of her bus protest.
“Rosa Parks, you have overcome,” said Sen. Sam Brownback,
R-Kansas. “Now may you rest in the loving arms of God. Praise God
for you.”
“I think I can quite honestly say that without Mrs. Parks, I would
probably not be standing here today as secretary of state,” said
Condoleezza Rice, the second black to hold that position, at the Alabama
service.
Said television personality Oprah Winfrey in Washington, “After
our first meeting, I realized that God uses good people to do great things.”
Rose Parks’ funeral took place, Nov. 2, in Detroit.
(Mary Orndorff of the Birmingham (Ala.) News and Adelle Banks of Religion News Service contributed to this report.)
Members of the National Guard carry the casket of Civil Rights pioneer Rosa Parks (above) into the Metropolitan AME Church in Washington, D.C., where a memorial service was held, Oct.31.
RNS PHOTO/REUTERS/Mannie Garcia
