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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 12, 1989)
Special Edition Portland, Oregon PORTLfiWbÒBSERVER January 12,1989 The Eyes and Ears of the com m unity Volume XIX • Number 2 IN C ELEBR ATIO N OF Keeping 'The Dream' A liv e .... M artin L uther K ing , -J r . JAN U AR Y 15,1929 - A P R IL 4,1968 "The dream is one of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property widely distributed; a dream of a land where man will not take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few; a dream of a land where men do not agree that the color of a man's skin determines the content of his character; a dream of a place where all our gifts and resources are held not for ourselves alone but as instruments of service for the rest of humanity; the dream of a country where every man will respect the dignity and worth of all human personality, and men will dare to live together as brothers.. . . " t e ’ - 4' ‘e* ir - Tracey DeShields Woodlawn Elementary School —Martin Luther King, Jr., I960 V Heather Egan - Choir Member Martin Luther King School T .-r - America in the King Years 1954-63 Cardis Berry-Choir Member Martin Luther King School 1955 was a pivotal year In the life of The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. When the year began he waa an unknown-the novice pastor of Dexter Baptist Church In Montgomery, Ala. When the year ended his name would be a household word. The transformation of King from obscurity to national prominence began In December when a Montgomery woman, Rosa Parka, defied that city’s segregation laws. Bus Boycott Launches Martin Luther King's Career As Civil Rights Leader -- bv Tavlor Branch Johnny Norman Woodlawn Elementary Schoo KA*.* *. • ' <• '• BLACK HISTORY IS .... A Celebration of our Commu nity Role-Models, a Faehlon Show Scholarship Fundraiser or Les Femmes Debutantes and ¡avaliers. Les Femmes Is hon- irlng contributors to the HIs- ory of the Pacific Northwest, »lease join us on Sunday, Janu- iry 15th at the Royal Esquire :iub, 1708 N.E. Alberta from 1:00 - 8:00 P.M. for "Black HIs- ory Is .... "a fashion celebra- ion. For more Information, jlease call 284-3591. On Dec. 1,1955, Rosa Parks left the Montgomery Fair department store late in the afternoon for her regular bus ride home. All 36 seats of the bus she boarded were soon filled, with 22 Negroes seated from the rear and 14 whites from the front. Driver J.P. Blake, seeing a white man standing in the front of the bus, called out for the four passengers on the row just behind the whites to stand up and move to the back. Nothing happened. Blake finally had to get out of the driver’s seat to speak more firmly to the four Negroes. “You better make it light on your selves and let me have those seats," he said. At this, three of the Negroes moved to stand in the back of the bus, but Parks responded that she was not in the white section and didn't think she ought to move. She was in no-man’s-land. Blake said that the white section was where he said it was, and he was telling Parks that she was in it . As he saw the law, the whole idea of no- man’s-land also gave him emergency police power to enforce the segrega tion codes. He would arrest Parks himself if he had to. Parks replied that he should do what he had to do; she was not moving. She spoke so softy that Blake would not have been able to hear her abovethedrone of normal bus noise. But the bus was silent. Blake notified Parks that she was officially under arrest. She should not move until he returned with the regular Montgom ery police. At the station, officers booked, fingerprinted and incarcerated Rosa Parks. It was not possible for her to think lightly of being arrested. Having crossed the line that in polite society divided Negroes from niggers, she had reason to expect not only sting ing disgrace among her own people but the least civilized attentions of the whites. When she was allowed to call home, her mother's first response was to groan and ask, “ Did they beat you?" Deep in panic, the mother called E.D. Nixon’s house for help. Nixon was a Pullman porter, famous to Montgomery Negroes as the man who knew every white policeman, judge and government clerk in town, and had always gone to see them about the grievance of any Negro who asked him for help Mrs. Nixon absorbed the shock and promptly called her husband at the downtown office he maintained. “ What was it she was arrested about?” asked Nixon. “ I don’t know," Mrs. Nixon replied impatiently. “ Go and get her.” Nixon sighed. If was just like his wife to give him orders as though he could always tell the white authorities to do things, such as to release pris oners. Nixon called Clifford Durr, an influ ential liberal white lawyer who often helped Nixon on civil rights issues, and told him what he knew. Durr promised to find out what he could from the jail, and soon called back with a report: Rosa Parks was charged with violating the Alabama bus seg regation laws. That was all. When he volunteered to accompany Nixon to make bond for Mrs. Parks, Nixon accepted the offer readily. Officers fetched Parks from the cell block as Nixon was signing the bond papers. She and Nixon and Durr were soon inside the Parks home with her mother and her husband, Rayond, a barber. Nixon asked the husband and the mother to excuse Rosa briefly, so that she could speak privately with him and Durr. He put the question to her: Would she be willing to fight the case? Rosa Parks did not have to be told twice what he meant, but she knew that it was a momentous decision for her family. She said she would have to approach her relatives with the idea privately, and chose to talk first alone with her mother and then with her husband. The proposal upset both of them. Raymond Parks came nearly undone. Having just felt primitive, helpless terror when his wife had been snatched into jail, he could not bear the thought that she would re enter the forbidden zone by choice. Now there was hope that the arrest could be forgiven as an isolated inci dent, but if she persisted, it would be deliberate. It would be political. "The white folks will kill you, Rosa," he said, pleading with her not to do it. Rosa Parks finally announced her decision. “ If you think it will mean something to Montgomery and do some good, I’ll be happy to go along with it," she said. After talking with Parks and agreeing to represent her, Durr called several of his friends on the Women’s Political Council, in- IH ON DECEMBER 1,1955, Mrs. Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white man. (Continued to Page 11)