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February 28, 2013

Rosa Parks Statue Unveiled in Washington, D.C. 
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President Obama presided over a ceremony in Washington on Wednesday
unveiling a statue of the late civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks. On Dec.
1, 1955, Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a
city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Her act of resistance led to a 13-month
boycott of the Montgomery bus system that would help spark the civil
rights movement.

President Obama: "She lived a life of activism, but also a life of
dignity and grace. And in a single moment, with the simplest of
gestures, she helped change America — and change the world. Rosa
Parks' singular act of disobedience launched a movement. The tired feet
of those who walked the dusty roads of Montgomery helped a nation see
that to which it had once been blind. It is because of these men and
women that I stand here today. It is because of them that our children
grow up in a land more free and more fair; a land truer to its founding
creed."

(For more on the life of Rosa Parks, watch the Democracy Now! hour-long
special on Rosa Parks with historian Jeanne Theoharis, author of the new
biography, "The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks.")

 

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