[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 155 (Tuesday, December 6, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H11051-H11054]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       RECOGNIZING 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE MONTGOMERY BUS BOYCOTT

  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the 
concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 273)

[[Page H11052]]

recognizing the 50th anniversary of the Montgomery bus boycott.
  The Clerk read as follows:

                            H. Con. Res. 273

       Whereas on December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, an African 
     American seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama, was arrested for 
     refusing to obey a busdriver's order to give up her seat on a 
     city bus for a White passenger boarding the bus, as required 
     by city ordinance;
       Whereas outrage over the arrest of Rosa Parks initiated a 
     meeting that weekend between the Reverend Ralph Abernathy, 
     the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Jo Ann Robinson, who 
     was the head of the Women's Political Council, and E.D. 
     Nixon, who was the Montgomery official for the National 
     Association for the Advancement of Colored People, also known 
     as the NAACP;
       Whereas this meeting resulted in the announcement of a 
     large-scale boycott against Montgomery city buslines;
       Whereas ministers voiced the communal outrage over Rosa 
     Parks's arrest during Sunday services, unifying the African 
     American community in Montgomery as the ministers conveyed 
     the message of the boycott;
       Whereas members of the community continued to spread the 
     news of the boycott by disseminating leaflets encouraging 
     participation in the boycott;
       Whereas through nonviolent means and the support of 
     ministers and African American and White citizens alike, the 
     Montgomery bus boycott and the beginning of the civil rights 
     movement gained national attention;
       Whereas Rosa Parks became and remains an icon of pride and 
     dignity, establishing a standard that has continued through 
     the civil rights movement;
       Whereas Martin Luther King, Jr., became the president of 
     the Montgomery Improvement Association, also known as the 
     MIA, and helped organize the boycott with other civil rights 
     leaders, such as Ralph Abernathy; and
       Whereas the Montgomery bus boycott ended after the United 
     States Supreme Court, on November 13, 1956, upheld a Federal 
     district court ruling declaring segregation on buses 
     unconstitutional: Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate 
     concurring), That Congress--
       (1) recognizes and honors the 50th anniversary of the 
     Montgomery bus boycott; and
       (2) recognizes the historical significance of the 
     Montgomery bus boycott to the United States.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentlewoman from 
North Carolina (Ms. Foxx) and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis) 
each will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from North Carolina.


                             General Leave

  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may 
have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks 
and include extraneous material on the resolution under consideration.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentlewoman from North Carolina?
  There was no objection.
  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H. Con. Res. 273, introduced 
by the distinguished gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Rogers). This bill 
would recognize the 50th anniversary of the Montgomery bus boycott.
  On December 1, 1955, a young woman named Rosa Parks took a small act 
of defiance and sparked a massive response that changed our society 
forever. The history bears retelling: Montgomery, Alabama enforced a 
policy of racial segregation on its public transit system, black 
passengers in the back, whites in the front. When the front of the bus 
reached full capacity, the driver could instruct African American 
passengers to yield their seats to white riders.
  On that fateful day, Rosa Parks refused to yield. She was physically 
and emotionally drained of the decades of intimidation, harassment, and 
discrimination of Alabama's African American population.
  From that moment on, encouraged by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., a 
city-wide boycott of the public transit system erupted. The boycott was 
extremely effective, drastically reducing ridership on the transit 
system. Instead of riding buses, boycotters walked, rode bicycles, or 
joined car pools to get to work and to other destinations. Across the 
Nation, African American churches raised money to buy new shoes to 
replace the tattered footwear of boycotters helping to fuel the fight 
against Jim Crow laws.
  Finally, the United States Supreme Court ruled that Alabama's racial 
segregation laws for public transit were unconstitutional, a clear 
victory for the boycotters. This led to a new city ordinance that 
allowed African American bus passengers to sit anywhere they pleased on 
any bus in the city.
  Rev. Martin Luther King capped off the news with a speech to 
encourage acceptance of the decision. The boycott resulted in the U.S. 
civil rights movement receiving one of its first accomplishments and 
gave Martin Luther King the national attention that would make him one 
of the prime civil rights leaders in our history.
  I urge all Members to come together and recognize this momentous 
event in our Nation's history by adopting H. Con. Res. 273.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, as a member of the Committee on Government Reform, I am 
pleased to join with my colleague in consideration of H. Con. Res. 273, 
which recognizes the 50th anniversary of the Montgomery bus boycott. 
This measure, sponsored by the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Rogers), has 
the support and cosponsorship of 73 Members of Congress.
  Rosa Parks is a great American and hero of the civil rights movement 
in this country. Rosa Parks symbolizes the triumph of civility over 
aggression, as was represented in her act of civil disobedience on 
December 1, 1955.
  On that day, Mrs. Rosa Parks and other African American bus riders 
sat in the fifth row of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. According to the 
law in Montgomery, blacks had to sit in the back of the bus if a white 
person wanted a seat in the front. The three people Rosa Parks was with 
complied with the request of the bus driver, but she refused. Mrs. 
Parks knew full well that this act could lead to arrest or even worse 
had she drawn the ire of white bus patrons. Armed with this knowledge 
she took a stand that would prove to inspire the African American 
community to rally behind her example and begin a movement that would 
change the course of history in our country.
  This simple act of refusing to give her seat in the front of the bus 
to a white patron, an act that led to her arrest and incarceration, was 
the spark that ignited a movement. Word of her act of defiance spread 
through the African American community in Alabama like wildfire. Civil 
rights leaders like the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., the Reverend 
Ralph Abernathy, and Ann Robinson, president of the Women's Political 
Council, and members of the NAACP convened to discuss the significance 
of this act of civil disobedience. They quickly decided to boycott the 
buses in Montgomery, Alabama.
  The boycott that followed was ultimately successful when in November 
1956 the United States Supreme Court upheld a Federal court ruling that 
stated that segregation on buses is unconstitutional. More important 
than desegregating the buses in Montgomery, the boycott signified the 
beginning of the civil rights movement in the United States.
  Years later, civil rights leaders would invoke the memory of the bus 
boycott as the critical event that galvanized the movement. The bus 
boycott, and the action of Mrs. Rosa Parks, was the critical event that 
galvanized that movement, inspired countless future acts of civil 
disobedience and peaceful protest against racial injustice.
  I would like to recognize the actions, as all of us do, of Mrs. Rosa 
Parks, who passed away on Monday, October 24, 2005, and celebrate the 
50th anniversary of the Montgomery bus boycott. I urge my colleagues to 
join in recognition of this amazing moment in the history of all 
America and of all Americans.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
distinguished gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Rogers).
  Mr. ROGERS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, it is with great honor that I 
rise today in support of H. Con. Res. 273.
  As we all know, it was 50 years ago last week that the Montgomery bus 
boycott had its humble beginnings in Montgomery, Alabama.
  On that first day of December 1955, a quiet seamstress named Rosa 
Parks refused to give up her seat on the city

[[Page H11053]]

bus. In doing so, she broke the law. But that did not stop Rosa Parks 
from doing what she knew was right that day. She remained in her seat 
even as police came to arrest her.
  Her quiet protest, which was nothing short of a challenge to the 
status quo, led to the event which started the Montgomery bus boycott.
  Mr. Speaker, I am deeply honored by the House's attention to these 
events today, and I am pleased to have another chance to honor one of 
Alabama's great civil rights leader, a woman whose recent passing has 
caused us all to mourn.
  But this resolution also helps honor those who, along with Rosa 
Parks, helped make the Montgomery bus boycott a success. Leaders like 
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., for example, ultimately helped provide the 
leadership necessary for the boycott to continue.
  Countless other Alabamians, as well as Americans from across the 
country, also came to help with this effort; and they continued with 
their protest until the Supreme Court ultimately ruled in their favor 
in 1956.
  Mr. Speaker, we all have much to learn from the events of 1955 and 
1956. I was in Montgomery last week and toured the parsonage where Dr. 
King helped coordinate many of the boycott's initiatives. It is my hope 
that this resolution will help pay tribute to those events. It is also 
my hope that this resolution will honor all those who participated in 
the boycott and provide our Nation another opportunity to learn from 
its past.
  I appreciate the strong support for this resolution here in the House 
and thank my colleagues from Alabama in particular for their support. 
Rosa Parks may not be with us today to witness this resolution, but I 
am comforted in knowing her legacy and that all of those who helped 
make the boycott a success will live on for generations to come.
  Mr. Speaker, I respectfully ask the House's continued support for 
this resolution.

                              {time}  1515

  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I certainly commend the gentleman 
from Alabama (Mr. Rogers) for his introduction of this resolution. And 
it is my pleasure now to yield such time as he might consume to the 
other distinguished gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Davis).
  Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, let me thank the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Davis) for yielding. Let me thank my colleague from the 
State of Alabama (Mr. Rogers) for introducing this resolution and for 
his comments on the floor today. And let me thank the leadership for 
bringing the resolution to the floor in such a timely and expeditious 
fashion.
  We have just finished a month-long commemorative period around Rosa 
Parks. Mr. Speaker, we started with the events after her death and we, 
in effect, culminate, at least the Congress's part of this culmination 
today with this resolution. And between last week, the President signed 
a resolution that will allow Rosa Parks to take her rightful place in 
Statuary Hall. And as we end this commemorative period, I simply want 
to make a couple of observations about what it is that we honor. The 
first is that we honor a community today.
  The countless anonymous number of African Americans who lived in 
Montgomery in 1955 included my mother and grandmother, included 
numerous other people who made their statement to history, and it is a 
statement that has lasted and will last for all time by the very act of 
perseverance.
  My grandmother used to always tell the story that the hardest time of 
the boycott was in the summer, because in Montgomery it never gets very 
cold, but it can get very hot. And in the summer, a lot of black people 
in 1955 did not have a lot of money and they could not afford air 
conditioning in the car. They could not afford to fix the air 
conditioning, so the carpools could be very uncomfortable.
  Another thing that made the summer uncomfortable was that the boys 
were out of school, so the little boys who wanted to stand on the side 
of the road and jeer the boycotters and the blacks of that community, 
they had nothing else to do during June and July and August. So she 
always said the summer was the worst time.
  But what made that community so special is that it persevered, and 
that community chose dignity over comfort. The comfortable thing would 
have been to end the boycott after making a symbolic statement. The 
comfortable thing would have been to end the boycott because of the 
strain of carrying it forward. The dignified thing was to keep going 
and to keep asserting their rights. So we honor their community today.
  And we do one other thing that is worth noting. We recognize that 
this history is not simply a story of black people of one race 
triumphing in this country as a story of us triumphing together, 
because in 1955, a white person in Montgomery, Alabama was not free 
either because a white person in Montgomery, Alabama had to build a 
code of conduct around not what was in his or her heart, but around 
what was written in the city ordinance. A white person in the south was 
not free in 1955 because he or she was bound by the color code of 
prejudice and the legal code of segregation.
  Well, all of a sudden, after this assertion of dignity, white people 
became free too, to have a mindset, to have a sentiment that was not 
simply based on prejudice. So here we stand 50 years later with an 
appropriately uncontroversial resolution, with southern Democrats and 
southern Republicans standing together to offer it.
  But the final thing that I say today, Mr. Speaker, is as we end this 
commemorative period and we put the statute in the hall and we pass the 
resolutions and we close this year down, we close the 50th anniversary 
down, it is not enough to honor this legacy by passing resolutions. And 
as we move into the second half of the 109th Congress, may we honor it 
by being true to this spirit. May we honor it by being true to the 
notion that there are no marginalized people in this country. If we 
marginalize and leave behind people, we somehow sacrifice all of our 
dignity. May we honor Rosa Parks by remembering that all of us have a 
place. If we are to have a country that is true, there is an agenda and 
there is a space for every one of God's children. If we can honor that, 
then Rosa Parks will have left a legacy that will endure for the ages 
and one that will lift the spirits and the imaginations of all kind of 
people all over this globe.
  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I have no other speakers at the moment and I 
reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman 
from Alabama (Mr. Davis) for his very eloquent characterization of the 
meaning of this resolution and the meaning of the life of Rosa Parks.
  I yield such time as she might consume to the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Watson).
  Ms. WATSON. Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the gentleman from 
Alabama (Mr. Rogers) for introducing H. Con. Res. 273 which recognizes 
the 50th anniversary of the Montgomery bus boycott.
  The 1955 Montgomery bus boycott lasted for 381 days. It was a 
defining moment in our Nation's history. The heroic and nonviolent 
actions of many people, and in particular, those of Rosa Parks, who was 
arrested on December 1, 1955, for refusing to give up her seat to a 
white man led ultimately to a historic U.S. Supreme Court ruling that 
outlawed segregated public transportation.
  The catalyst for the success of Montgomery bus boycott is the fact 
that some 40,000 Black citizens of Montgomery decided not to ride the 
bus. Their nonviolent boycott ultimately drained the city financially. 
Perhaps for the first time in history, black residents of Alabama had 
used their economic power to gain social success.
  Social justice and economic equality are two sides of the same coin. 
50 years after the Montgomery bus boycott, our Nation has made great 
strides in social justice and in increasing economic opportunities for 
all Americans. But much remains to be done.
  Fifty years later, the unemployment rate for African Americans is 
almost double that for the whole of America. Fifty years later, almost 
1 in 4 African Americans live in poverty. Fifty years later, America's 
African American children are twice as likely as white children to die 
before their first birthday. And 50 years later, poverty in America 
still holds a tight grip on too many of our Nation's citizens.

[[Page H11054]]

  As this body honors and recalls a truly historic event in our Nation, 
let us also not forget that much still remains to be done to ultimately 
fulfill the legacy and the dreams of those thousands of Americans who 
participated in the Montgomery bus boycott.
  Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H. Con. Res. 273, which 
recognizes and honors the 50th anniversary of the Montgomery, Alabama, 
bus boycott and the historical significance of the boycott to the 
United States.
  On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a seamstress and wife, boarded a 
Montgomery bus to begin her usual journey home. Nothing was 
particularly different about this day, except that she wanted to sit 
after a long day's work. When ordered by the white bus driver to give 
up her seat to a white passenger, she simply refused, and her action 
led to a boycott of the city's bus system. This event was the straw 
that broke the back of segregation in the South.
  This was a stunning moment in time, not just a step along the way. It 
ultimately resulted in two of our nation's landmark pieces of 
legislation, the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.
  The bus boycott was a memorable example of how Dr. Martin Luther 
King's tradition of nonviolent protests have brought about important 
policy changes in our world.
  In our nation's ongoing struggle for civil rights, this boycott was a 
watershed event, and it is appropriate to be honoring it here today on 
the House floor.
  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commemorate the 50th 
anniversary of the Montgomery bus boycott. The boycott was a pivotal 
moment that turned the tide in this Nation's history, and it was 
initiated by the simplest of actions, undertaken by the most unimposing 
of individuals--the late Rosa Parks, whose death on October 24 we 
continue to mourn.
  In the United States, we are born and raised to believe in individual 
freedom and equality. We read of it in our founding documents, we live 
and breathe it, we are surrounded by it and immersed in it. Confronted, 
then, by the denial of individual freedom and equality, Ms. Parks put 
the nation to a test of its principles, without knowing that her simple 
act of defiance would reverberate around the world. What followed, as 
we all know, was nothing short of the transformation of the nation.
  And so I rise today to again honor Rosa Parks, and to commemorate the 
Montgomery bus boycott, but also to acknowledge--I am saddened to say--
that we seem to have a very long way to go yet in the United States to 
ensure racial and ethnic equality. We must honor those who struggled in 
the Montgomery bus boycott, those who worked for the passage of the 
Civil Rights Act, and the passage of the Voting Rights Act, by ensuring 
today that all America are entitled to vote, are not intimidated to 
vote, and that there votes are accurately counted.
  Mr. Speaker, I commend Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King, Jr., and 
all those who launched the Montgomery bus boycott, resulting in the end 
of segregation on buses and commencing the transformation of the 
Nation. I call on my colleagues to continue the unending struggle to 
make the United States the shining example of freedom, democracy and 
equality for all that the founding fathers intended it to be and the 
civil rights movement brought into fruition.
  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for 
time and urge passage of this resolution. I yield back the balance of 
my time.
  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I urge all members to support the adoption of 
H. Con. Res. 273. I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Boozman). The question is on the motion 
offered by the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx) that the 
House suspend the rules and agree to the concurrent resolution, H. Con. 
Res. 273.
  The question was taken; and (two-thirds having voted in favor 
thereof) the rules were suspended and the concurrent resolution was 
agreed to.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________