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-
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1:00 - 8:00 P.M. for "Black HIs-
ory Is .... "a fashion celebra-
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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)