Rosa Parks’ arrest sparked historic boycott — AP WAS THERE

Sixty years ago today, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus and was arrested for her failure to comply with the city’s segregation laws. Parks’ arrest sparked the 381-day boycott of Montgomery buses by blacks to protest segregated seating.

“Our work isn’t finished. There are still injustice perpetrated every day across our country, sometimes in spite of the law, sometimes, unfortunately, in keeping with it”. He earned her a standing ovation inside the church as he called “the next president of the United States of America”. At the pulpit here, speaker after speaker endorsed Clinton.

In November, 1956, the Supreme Court upheld a prior district court ruling citing segregation on city buses as unconstitutional. “It’s about strengthening ties across society, between neighbors, colleagues, even among people with whom we profoundly disagree”, Clinton said. He was on a mission, he said, “to find everything segregated and destroy it”. “At least I can say I did see her and I’ve been in her presence”. Specifically, Clinton called for “common sense” steps to reduce gun violence such as a ban on those on the no-fly list having guns. She was secretary of the chapter at the time of her arrest.

“Yes, we must strengthen that most fundamental citizenship right, the right to vote”, Clinton said.

And learning from a leader who once sat in a classroom just like them. She gave a voting rights speech in Birmingham in October.

“It’s always struck me how, depending on the way you look at it, Rosa Parks either did something tremendous or something rather humble”, Clinton said, pointing out how often history is made with an ordinary act “by seemingly ordinary people doing something extraordinary”. “But America had changed”.

It gets worse. Just in case that rule wasn’t humiliating enough, there was another that required African American passengers to first board the bus at the front, so they could pay, and then step out and go to the back door to enter again.

“Rosa Parks (being fingerprinted), Negro seamstress, whose refusal to move to the back of a bus touched off the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama”. They praise Parks’ compassion and dedication to the dispossessed, while out of the other side of their mouths they propose legislation to weaken and destroy Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, public education and child services.

Although Rosa Parks was not the first to refuse to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus her defiance ignited the matchstick in the powder barrel.

“I would rather be lynched than live to be mistreated and not be allowed to say “I don’t like it”.”

Colvin would also be one of the four plaintiffs in the civil case, Browder vs. Gayle, that overturned the bus segregation laws.

But Rosa Parks was much more than someone who lived quietly until she hit a breaking point.

King’s daughter, Bernice King, is scheduled to give the benediction.