[March 25, 1965 | Montgomery, Alabama] Rev. Rev. Abernathy and all the distinguished leaders of this nation and all of you wonderful Freedom Fighters, my brothers and sisters and my children – because I have been called the mother of this – you see before you now a victim of all that has been perpetrated against one to make us less than human. Speech at the Alabama Freedom March March 25, 1965— Montgomery, Alabama SPEECH Rev. Abernathy and all the distinguished leaders of this nation and all of you wonderful Freedom Fighters, my brothers and sisters and my children – because I have been called the mother of this – you see before you now a victim of all that has been perpetrated against one to make us less than human. It connects Rosa Parks’s actions to current social justice movements. Ideal for civil rights anniversaries, leadership conferences, and educational events. #3 A Legacy That Lives On. Honored guests and fellow citizens, today we celebrate the enduring legacy of Rosa Parks, a woman whose quiet strength changed America. Speech at the Alabama Freedom March - March 25, 1965Rosa ParksMarch 25, 1965— Montgomery, Alabama SPEECHRev. Abernathy and all the distinguished leaders of t Rosa Parks! Hello! My name is Rosa Parks and I was an important and influential American. You should know about me because I did not give up my seat on a bus to a white man. My action helped to start the Civil Rights Movement. The Civil Rights Movement aimed its efforts toward changing the laws in Montgomery, Alabama and in Rosa Parks Speech Rosa Louise McCauley Parks born 4th of February 1913 in Alabama and sadly passed away on October 24th 2005 at the age of 92. Within her lifetime she gained civil rights for African Americans, with the help of Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights participants. Rosa Parks, a woman that changed a nation. In the 1950s, Rosa Parks gave the US Civil Rights Movement a huge boost, and inspired Martin Luther King Jr. The group initiated the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, where Rosa Parks (1913—2005) helped initiate the civil rights movement in the United States when she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in 1955. Her actions Rosa Parks smiles during a ceremony where she received the Congressional Medal of Freedom in Detroit on Nov. 28, 1999. Parks, whose refusal to give up her bus seat to a white man sparked the Let us continue with the same spirit, with the same orderliness, with the same discipline, with the same Christian approach. I believe that God is using Montgomery as his proving ground. It may be that here in the capital of the Confederacy, the birth of the ideal of freedom in America and in the Southland can be born. After additional musical performances, march organizer Bayard Rustin introduced “two great, great heroes of the struggle”: Rosa Parks, of the Montgomery bus boycott, and Daisy Bates, NAACP chapter president and an advisor to the Little Rock Nine. In what would be her only opportunity to speak to the crowd, Parks said: Hello friends of freedom. Rosa Parks (born February 4, 1913, Tuskegee, Alabama, U.S.—died October 24, 2005, Detroit, Michigan) was an American civil rights activist whose refusal to relinquish her seat on a public bus precipitated the 1955–56 Montgomery bus boycott in Alabama, which became the spark that ignited the civil rights movement in the United States. Medal. Rosa Parks Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (071.00.00) Enlarge Rosa Parks at the White House with President Bill Clinton after receiving the 1996 Presidential Medal of Freedom, Washington, D.C., 1996. Photograph. Visual Materials from the Rosa Parks Papers, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (072.00.00 Rosa Parks, the "Mother of the Civil Rights Movement" was one of the most important citizens of the 20th century. Mrs. Parks was a seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama when, in December of 1955, she refused to give up her seat on a city bus to a white passenger. The bus driver had her arrested. She was tried and convicted of violating a local ordinance. Her act sparked a citywide boycott of the The Courage to Take Action: A Lesson from Rosa Parks The Courage to Take Action: A Lesson from Rosa Parks by Barack Obama Speech by President Obama at Dedication of Statue Honoring Rosa Parks at the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. Mr. Speaker, Leader Reid, Leader McConnell, Leader Pelosi, Assistant Leader Clyburn; to the friends and Civil rights activist Rosa Parks refused to surrender her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama, sparking the transformational Montgomery Bus Boycott. Rosa Parks being fingerprinted after arrest in Montgomery, Alabama, 1956 (Wikimedia Commons)In 1965, Rosa Parks would have had a lot to say about police brutality.By then, she had left Alabama in poverty and ill health — both brought on by the severe repercussions she faced following her 1955 bus stance — and had been living in Detroit for eight years. "Parks Recalls Bus Boycott, Excerpts from an interview with Lynn Neary", National Public Radio (1992), linked at "Civil Rights Icon Rosa Parks Dies", NPR, October 25, 2005. Thank you very much. I honor my late husband Raymond Parks, other Freedom Fighters, men of goodwill who could not be here. The name Rosa Parks is synonymous with courage and defiance in the face of oppression. Her act of refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus to a white person on December 1, 1955, sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a pivotal event in the Civil Rights Movement. However, there is more to Rosa Parks than this singular act of bravery. Had Rosa Parks been less primly composed, had her diction betrayed the mangled speech of the ordinary black passenger, the outcome of Thursday, December 1, 1955, could have been different
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