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 Hilton l.iiL't'ni' X <:<»ii(Vrcn('f Outer Now Hear This 2005-06 Thursday October 27th Jaqua Concert Hall at The Shedd Tickets: 434-7000 (ISLER&cg) IiiIiii II Minin'. Ml) Kent Kiirrcn. Ml) TlieKve Center 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. 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