Pase6__________________________________ ^ o r t l a n ì » ( © b a e r ü e r ________________________________ March 6.2013
Rosa Parks Statute Dedicated
Civil rights icon shaped course of U.S. history
\(AP) — President Barack
Obama and congressional leaders
unveiled a full-length statue of
civil rights icon Rosa Parks in the
Capitol last Wednesday, paying
tribute to a figure whose name
became synonymous with cour
age in the face of injustice.
Parks becomes the first black
woman to be honored with a full-
length statue in the Capitol's Statu
ary Hall. A bust of another black
woman, abolitionist Sojourner
Truth, sits in the Capitol Visitors
Center.
Obama said that with the in
stallation of the statue, Parks,
who died in 2005, has taken her
rightful place among those who
have shaped the course of U.S.
history. He said her presence in
Capitol would serve to "remind us
no matter how humble or lofty
our positions, just what it is that
leadership requires."
Obama and House Speaker John
Boehner jointly led the unveiling,
standing with the statue between
them as they grasped and pulled
in opposite directions on the
braided cord that held the cover
ing. Congressional leaders in the
House and Senate joined Parks'
niece in tugging on the cord.
"We do well by placing a statue
of her here," Obama said, "but we
can do no greater honor to her
memory than to carry forward
the power of her principle and a
courage bom of conviction."
The statue portrays Parks
seated, wearing a hat and clutch
ing her trademark purse — "a
permanent reminder of the cause
she embodied," said Senate Mi
nority Leader Mitch McConnell.
The several hundred lawmak
ers, family and congressional staff
who gathered for the ceremony
in the vaulted hall rose to their feet
and whooped as Boehner opened
the ceremony.
"Here in the hall, she casts an
unlikely silhouette — unassum
ing in a lineup of proud stares,
challenging all of us once more to
look up and to draw strength
from stillness," said Boehner, R-
Ohio.
In a pivotal moment in the civil
rights movement, Rosa Parks re
fused to give up her seat on a city
bus in segregated Montgomery,
Ala. She was arrested, touching
off a bus boycott that stretched
over a year.
Senate Majority Leader Harry
Reid, D-Nev., said Parks had
"moved the world when she re
fused to move her seat."
Jeanne Theoharis, author of
the new biography "The Rebel
lious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks,"
said Parks was very much a full-
fledged civil rights activist, yet
her contributions have not been
treated like those of other move
ment leaders, such as the Rev.
ALL ABOARD!
On display January 15—
-April 21, 2013
President Barack Obama speaks during the unveiling ceremony
for the Rosa Parks statue in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.
In th is o rig in a l Oregon H isto ry M useum e xh ib it, learn
abo u t the black ro m m u n ity th a t grew up and w orked
around Union S tation in the la te 19th to m id-20th
century, and the churches, new spapers, and businesses
th e y b u ilt w hich fo re ve r changed the city of P ortland.
•O R H IS E T O G
ON
RY MUSEUM
1200 SW Park Avenue I D ow ntow n P ortland
WWW.0HS.ORG I 503.222.1741
THF OREGON
COMMUNITY
FOUNDATION
H i r e fo r O ^ i o n . H e re fa r C a a tf
O. Hm
Oregon
Humanities
NRHS
Trust Management
Services, LLC
Martin Luther King Jr.
"Rosa Parks is typically hon
ored as a woman of courage, but
that honor focuses on the one act
she made on the bus on Dec. 5,
1955," said Theoharis, a political
science professor at Brooklyn Col
lege-City University of New York.
"That courage, that night was
the product of decades of politi
cal work before that and contin
ued ... decades after" in Detroit,
she said.
Parks died Oct. 24, 2005, at
age 92. The U.S. Postal Service
issued a stamp in her honor on
Feb. 4, which would have been
her 100th birthday.
Parks was raised by her mother
and grandparents who taught her
that part of being respected was
to demand respect, said Theoharis,
who spent six years researching
and writing the Parks biography.
She was an educated woman
who recalled seeing her grandfa
ther sitting on the porch steps
with a gun during the height of
white violence against blacks in
post-World War I Alabama.
After she married Raymond
Parks, she joined him in his work
in trying to help nine young black
men, ages 12 to 19, who were
accused of raping two white
women in 1931. The nine were
later convicted by an all-white
jury in Scottsboro, Ala., part of a
long legal odyssey for the so-
called Scottsboro Boys.
In the 1940s, Parks joined the
NAACP and was elected secre
tary of its Montgomery, Ala.,
branch, working with civil rights
activist Edgar Nixon to fight bar
riers to voting for blacks and
investigate sexual violence against
women, Theoharis said.
Parks has been honored previ
ously in Washington with the
Presidential Medal of Freedom in
1996 and the Congressional Gold
Medal in 1999, both during the
Clinton administration.