Rosa Parks, civil rights pioneer, dies at 92
BY BREE FOWLER
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DETROIT — Rosa Lee Parks, whose
refusal to give up her bus seat to a
white man sparked the modern civil
rights movement, died Monday
evening. She was 92.
Parks died at her home during the
evening of natural causes, with close
friends by her side, said Gregory Reed,
an attorney who represented her for
the past 15 years.
Parks was 42 when she committed
an act of defiance in 1955 that was to
change the course of American histo
ry and earn her the title “mother of the
civil rights movement.”
At that time, Jim Crow laws in place
since the post-Civil War Reconstruc
tion required separation of the races in
buses, restaurants and public accom
modations throughout the South,
while legally sanctioned racial discrim
ination kept blacks out of many jobs
and neighborhoods in the North.
The Montgomery, Ala., seamstress,
an active member of the local chapter
of the National Association for the Ad
vancement of Colored People, was rid
ing on a city bus Dec. 1,1955, when a
white man demanded her seat.
Parks refused, despite rules requir
ing blacks to yield their seats to whites.
TVvo black Montgomery women had
been arrested earlier that year on the
same charge, but Parks was jailed. She
also was fined $14.
The Rev. A1 Sharpton called Parks “a
gentle woman whose single act
changed the most powerful nation in
the world. ... One of the highlights of
my life was meeting and getting to
know her.”
Speaking in 1992, Parks said “that
my feet were hurting and I didn’t
know why I refused to stand up when
they told me. But the real reason of my
not standing up was I felt that I had a
right to be treated as any other passen
ger. We had endured that kind of treat
ment for too long.”
Her arrest triggered a 381-day boy
cott of the bus system organized by a
then little-known Baptist minister, the
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Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who later
earned the Nobel Peace Prize.
The Montgomery bus boycott,
which came one year after the
Supreme Court’s landmark declaration
that separate schools for blacks and
whites were “inherently unequal,”
marked the start of the modem civil
rights movement.
The movement culminated in the
1964 federal Civil Rights Act, which
banned racial discrimination in public
accommodations.
After taking her public stand for civ
il rights, Parks had trouble finding
work in Alabama. Amid threats and
harassment, she and her husband Ray
mond moved to Detroit in 1957. She
worked as an aide in the Detroit office
of Democratic U.S. Rep. John Conyers
from 1965 until retiring in 1988. Ray
mond Parks died in 1977.
Parks became a revered figure in
Detroit, where a street and middle
school were named for her and a papi
er-mache likeness of her was featured
in the city’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Parks said upon retiring from her
job with Conyers that she wanted to
devote more time to the Rosa and Ray
mond Parks Institute for Self Develop
ment. The institute, incorporated in
1987, is devoted to developing leader
ship among Detroit’s young people
and initiating them into the struggle for
civil rights.
“Rosa Parks: My Story” was pub
lished in 1992. In 1994 she brought out
“Quiet Strength: The Faith, the Hope
and the Heart of a Woman Who
Changed a Nation,” and in 1996 a col
lection of letters called “Dear Parks: A
Dialogue With Today’s Youth. ”
She was among the civil rights lead
ers who addressed the Million Man
March in October 1995.
In 1996, she received the Presiden
tial Medal of Freedom, awarded to
civilians making outstanding contribu
tions to American life. In 1999, she re
cieved the Congressional Gold Medal,
the nation’s highest civilian honor.
Parks received dozens of other
awards, from induction into the Alaba
ma Academy of Honor to an NAACP
Image Award for her 1999 appearance
on CBS’ “Tbuched by an Angel.”
The Rosa Parks Library and Muse
um opened in November 2000 in
Montgomery. The museum features
a 1955-era bus and a video that recre
ates the conversation that preceded
Parks’ arrest.
Looking back in 1988, Parks said
she worried that black young people
took legal equality for granted.
“We must double and redouble our
efforts to try to say to our youth, to try
to give them an inspiration, an incen
tive and the will to study our heritage
and to know what it means to be black
in America today.”
At a celebration in her honor that
same year, she said: “I am leaving
this legacy to all of you ... to bring
peace, justice, equality, love and a
fulfillment of what our lives should
be. Without vision, the people will
perish, and without courage and in
spiration, dreams will die — the
dream of freedom and peace.”
Award: Furniture exchange prevents waste
Continued from page 1
joined the WasteWise program dur
ing the last academic year as part of
its participation in RecycleMania, an
annual EPA-endorsed competition be
tween colleges and universities
across the country aimed at reducing
waste in campus residence halls.
The University placed second of
49 schools in the competition dur
ing the last academic year, and
Hathcock said the University plans
to compete again this year.
The 2004 College/University Part
ner of the Year Award went to Mia
mi University in Oxford, Ohio,
which co-founded RecycleMania in
2001 and has since taken first place
in three of the five competitions, ac
cording to the WasteWise Web site.
Kaplan said recycling is not a glo
rified form of garbage collection but
a whole philosophy that can include
buying products made from recy
cled materials and using nontoxic
cleaners.
One aspect of the University’s recy
cling program is the Reusable Office
Supply Exchange, which consists of a
closet in Prince Lucien Campbell Hall
Check out these fall workshops!
Applying to Graduate School
Wednesday, October 26,4:00 pm, 360 Oregon Hall
A general overview of the graduate school application process, procedures,
and timelines.
Academic Planning Using UO Technology
Thursday, October 27, 3:30 pm, 360 Oregon Hall
Discover how to dig for academic treasures on the UO website. Use DuckWeb and
Blackboard to the fullest. Explore departments, majors, minors, classes, research,
faculty, and more.
Getting a Master's in Social Work
Thursday, October 27,1:00-2:00 pm, 253 PLC
Learn about the PSU Master’s in Social Work program,
admissions requirements, and more. A representative
from PSU will be present.
364 Oregon Hall • 346-3211 • http://advising.uoregon.edu
OFFICE G
Academic
Advising
where faculty members and student
group members can drop off office
supplies they don’t need and pick up
things they do.
The exchange saves $20,000
per year in office supply costs, Ka
plan said.
Campus Recycling also operates a
furniture exchange for University
departments.
Everything that is thrown into a
landfill decomposes and emits
greenhouse gases, which harm the
ozone layer, Kaplan said, so throw
ing a couch that is still usable into a
landfill rather than giving it to
someone who could use it directly
harms the environment.
The furniture exchange program
prevented 10 tons of waste from en
tering landfills during the 2003-04
fiscal year, the most recent year that
data is available.
“Originally, recycling was accept
ed in different places as a way to re
duce roadside litter, and now it’s
evolved to all these different uses,”
Kaplan said.
Kaplan said that while many uni
versities have successful recycling
programs, the University stands out
because of its students.
“Number one, student involve
ment is critical,” Kaplan said. “We
have one of the most innovative re
cycling programs in the country in
terms of use of students.”
Kaplan said the Campus Recy
cling Program has 45 paid student
employees, while recycling pro
grams at other universities tend to
hire full-time workers.
Involving students in the process
reaps long-term dividends, as
Kaplan said University students
who work for Campus Recycling
often move to other cities and
continue to work in recycling after
they graduate.
On campus, the program has seen
increasing success since it began in
1989, Kaplan said.
“The population of students has
grown, and we’ve continued to de
crease the amount of waste generat
ed on campus,” Kaplan said.
Contact the business, science and
technology reporter at
esylwester@ cLailyemerald. com
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