[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 138 (Wednesday, October 26, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H9258-H9259]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         TRIBUTE TO ROSA PARKS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Davis) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, I thank you for letting me claim 
the time for my colleague, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), 
who I trust will join us tonight.
  Mr. Speaker, several of my colleagues have gathered to honor an 
individual who was one of the legendary Americans of the last century. 
She was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most significant 
people of that century. She was honored by President Clinton as a 
winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and she has been honored 
by numerous organizations all over this world and all over this 
country. Her name was Rosa Parks. She was, of course, an icon of the 
South, an icon of the country, and she was called home to her maker 
just last week.
  She will have two memorial services. One we understand will be in 
Detroit, Michigan next Wednesday, one in Montgomery, Alabama, this 
coming Sunday. Two communities, Montgomery and Detroit, will do their 
best to make a statement on behalf of this extraordinary woman; and I 
thank the House for giving us this hour to speak to her role tonight.
  I wanted to begin by hearkening, if I can, back to Montgomery, 
Alabama, in 1954. Montgomery, Alabama, happens to be the city where I 
was born in 1967, it happens to be the city where my mother was born, 
and my grandmother came to that city in 1931.
  I still remember them telling me what it was like to sit at the back 
of the bus. As those who know history remember, that was not simply a 
Montgomery phenomenon; it was a Southern phenomenon. The practice of 
making black Americans sit in a certain place in the bus, the practice 
of making them yield their seat was carried on in a number of Southern 
cities; but I remember hearing the stories about Montgomery.

                              {time}  2115

  My mother and my grandmother never liked the stigma of segregation. 
They were not happy about it. But, like so many people their age and 
generation, they just took it as being part of the overlay over the 
land. They just took it as being part of the atmosphere of living in 
the South. And, like so many other people, they went on about their 
business, hoping for a better world, but not knowing when or if it 
would come.
  And then all of a sudden this extraordinary woman named Rosa Parks, 
who was in her mid-40s at that time, decided that she would rise up and 
say ``no'' to this system of segregation. One day in late 1954, she 
resisted the order, she resisted the command to get up and to yield her 
seat. The world has never turned back from that moment. All of a 
sudden, people like my mother and grandmother were freed. But the 
interesting thing is that white Americans and white Montgomerians were 
freed as well, because all of a sudden, from that day forward, or 
maybe, more accurately, from the day that the moment succeeded and won 
concessions from the white power structure in Montgomery, we reached a 
point where people were free to sit together. That might seem like a 
quaint thing to those of us in 2005, but the sitting together led to 
talking together, led to reasoning together, and led to people 
accommodating each other. It led to people one day getting to the point 
that they could understand and build one solid and one stable 
community. That was the legacy of Rosa Parks.
  As a number of my colleagues will point out tonight, we would do well 
if we understood exactly why segregation thrived for so long and what 
it was meant to do. It was never just meant to be a symbol. It was 
never just meant to be a code of laws; it was meant to be a stigma. It 
was meant to say to a certain group of people, you are not like the 
rest of us. You are not like us. You are different. You are worse than 
we are. It was meant to confer a badge of inferiority. And I think that 
the hope of segregationists, the hope of the supremacists was that 
these people who were being stigmatized might slowly but surely lose 
their confidence and slowly but surely buy into all the myths and all 
the hatred about them. That is why segregation thrived for so long.
  Well, when Rosa Parks stood up by sitting down, when Rosa Parks 
refused to move, it was a triumph of the human spirit. It was a triumph 
of all people who yearn for some measure of freedom and dignity in 
their lives.
  I hearken back to the last conversation, Mr. Speaker, the Special 
Order that happened before this. Our colleagues on the other side of 
the aisle talked about the adventure in Iraq right now and talked about 
the dawning of freedom in that territory. I am reminded how recent is 
that experience in this country. As we go around the world speaking on 
behalf of freedom, I am reminded tonight of how fresh and how recent is 
that experience here.
  I think we ought to speak to another woman: Vivian Malone Jones. 
Vivian Malone Jones was another trailblazer like Rosa Parks. At the age 
of 20, she was the first African American to attend the University of 
Alabama and to stay there, and, at the age of 23, she

[[Page H9259]]

was the first African American to graduate. It so happens the 
incredible irony of history that she died last week at the young age of 
63.
  I remember going on campus at the University of Alabama just last 
week to speak at a memorial service for her and to see students, black 
and white, people from the power structure of Tuscaloosa, people from 
all over Tuscaloosa gathering together to honor her sacrifice. I am 
reminded, Mr. Speaker, of a cover of Newsweek Magazine in 1963. It 
showed Vivian Malone Jones, who was a very beautiful young woman, it 
showed her standing there on the campus, and beneath her image was the 
anonymous quote: ``We owe them and we owe ourselves a better country.''
  Mr. Speaker, I would submit that the Vivian Malone Joneses and the 
Rosa Parkses, what made them such icons, what makes them icons to us 
now, is the fact that they challenged us. They made us believe that we 
owed them a better country, and they also made us believe that we owed 
ourselves a better country.
  One of the last points that I will make tonight is that there ought 
to be a challenge in this for us, because not only do we owe their 
successors a better country, we owe the people who are wounded in 
America, who are coming back from Iraq, a better country. We owe the 
people who are working every single day, striving to earn a living and 
falling just short of the water's edge, we owe them a better country. 
We owe the children who are sliding into poverty in this country a 
better country and a better vision. That is what we have to understand.
  This legacy of civil rights, this history of individuals rising above 
oppression and segregation is a long-running theme in human history. 
The story of people standing up against oppressive systems and 
asserting their dignity is a long-running theme in human history. It is 
a theme of courage, and it is a uniquely American theme.

  So as I prepare to yield to some of my colleagues tonight, I will 
simply make these two final points. I am very proud to be from 
Montgomery, Alabama, very proud to be a son of this modern South, 
because every day that we build bridges of reconciliation, we pay our 
own tribute to Rosa Parks. Every day that we find a way to exist across 
racial lines, every day that we find a way to transcend new boundaries, 
every day that we find a way to make better the lives of all the people 
who live in our community, we pay a silent tribute to Rosa Parks and to 
Vivian Malone Jones, and we ought to remember that.
  The final point that I will make is simply, once again, to talk about 
the power of individual choice. I heard one of my colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle talk about the enormous courage of our soldiers 
in Iraq, and it is such a thing that inspires us, their courage. Well, 
there is a common theme between what they do and what Rosa Parks did. 
It is believing that there is a higher cause that can sustain you, just 
as our soldiers believe when they get up every morning and face the 
bunkers and the missiles and the grenades, they believe that there is a 
higher cause that can sustain them. So did Rosa Parks. When she sat on 
that bus, she believed that there was something beyond her mortal 
existence, and that moved her.
  The last thing I say today is that our country can be moved if we 
simply understand the power of individuals asserting their dignity, if 
we put enough of a foundation beneath them so that they can live their 
destinies.
  With that said, I am very happy to turn over the management of this 
Special Order to my colleague, John Conyers from Michigan, who employed 
Rosa Parks for a number of years, someone who was a friend of hers, and 
someone who has been an advocate for many years now, almost 40 years 
now, in this Chamber for so many progressive causes.

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