Thousands in Alabama pay respects to Rosa Parks and Black freedom

In a steady stream, thousands of people, Black and white, filed into St. Paul AME Church on Oct. 29 to pay respects to civil rights activist Rosa Parks, who died in Detroit on Oct. 24 at the ago of 92. Parks' arrest on Dec. 1, 1955, for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger, sparked the historic Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Thousands turn out in Montgomery, Ala.

The 1955 mass resistance to Jim Crow segregation moved the modern civil rights struggle out of the courts and into the streets and engaged millions in a political movement that changed U.S. society.

Rosa Parks' body was brought home to Montgomery, the city where she had gone to school, married, worked, and became a member of the local NACCP chapter, serving as its secretary and later as a youth leader.

As people exited the church, many commented on how they had felt compelled to come to honor Parks "for what she did for me" even though most had never met her or were too young to have experienced the indignities of legal segregation.

Writing their names in the condolence books placed outside the church, people emotionally reflected on how such a small woman had made an historic change through her courage and resolve and that her legacy needed to be continued.

Although most were from Montgomery and the surrounding area, others had traveled from dozens of cities and towns in Florida, Georgia and elsewhere. Grey-haired seniors, many of whom had participated in the bus boycott, came with their adult children and grandchildren.

Noticeable among the predominantly African-American mourners were white residents of Montgomery such as Evelyn Pope, 37, who brought her two young daughters "because they see the world differently now" thanks to Rosa Parks, and Tom Sise who drove from Pensacola, Fla., because "it was the right thing to do."

Bessie Roberts, a retired teacher from Warner-Robins, Ga., met her brother, Larry Turner from Pell City, Ala., outside the church. They remarked that "Parks is continuing to lead us. Her death just before the 50th anniversary of the Montgomery Bus Boycott has made us all aware again. It has shaken our consciousness that we all have a part to play."

A seat on the bus

Parked outside the church was a Montgomery City bus like the one that Rosa Parks had ridden on to get to her job as a seamstress in downtown Montgomery. The bus on which she was arrested is in a civil rights museum in Detroit.

Nevertheless, people boarding the bus wanted to sit symbolically where Rosa Parks had defied the Jim Crow laws that kept Black people in the back of the bus.

Settling into the second row seat on the right side of the bus, people's faces showed visible pride and self-confidence, they straightened their shoulders, and repeated Parks' famous refusal to cooperate with segregation.

People told children that by sitting in Rosa Parks' seat, they now were committed to carry on her legacy for justice.

Brenda Curry-Johnson and her 4th-grade son, Damian, sat on the bus for hours, talking to people as they boarded. She had helped with the memorial service that morning. She greeted everyone who got on the bus, showing them which seat Rosa Parks had been in on that history-making day.

Curry-Johnson said she was excited that she had a chance to meet Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rev. Al Sharpton and actress Cicely Tyson, but what moved her to stay until late that night was all the thousands of mothers and fathers with their children.

She proudly told them that her older son, Jeremy, had won a contest to create a birthday card for Rosa Parks and that his drawing was in the Rosa Parks museum in Montgomery.

Cane in hand, Annye Burch climbed on board the bus and sat in the front seat, declaring, "This is the first time I have put my foot on a Montgomery city bus since 1955."

Burch was a student at Alabama State the day that Rosa Parks was arrested. "That night flyers were passed out at school, telling us not to ride the buses the next day. We didn't, not that day or the next. For more than a year, we walked. We were real foot soldiers."

Burch explained to those getting on how Black people before the boycott had to pay their fare to the driver, then get off and get back on through the rear door of the bus. "The white drivers yelled at us, and if we didn't move fast enough, they would shut the doors and leave us standing there. We were mistreated for so long."

L. E. Kennedy, the third Black driver to be hired after segregation on city buses was overturned, spoke about the need to fight racism today. In 1966 he was still not allowed to use the company bathrooms. He said that finally five or six Black drivers organized and went into the restroom as a group "and that ended that."

On Oct. 30, Rosa Parks' casket was taken to Washington, D.C., where it will be placed in the Rotunda of the Capitol, which was built by slave labor, to be viewed by tens of thousands more admirers. Then, her body will be returned to Detroit to lie in state at the Museum of African-American History. Her funeral will take place on Nov. 2.