[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 41, Number 48 (Monday, December 5, 2005)]
[Pages 1805-1806]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on Signing Legislation To Place a Statue of Rosa Parks in the 
National Statuary Hall at the United States Capitol

December 1, 2005

    The President. Welcome. Please be seated. Thank you all for being 
here. Laura and I thank you for joining us on this special day.
    Fifty years ago, an African American woman named Rosa Parks helped 
set in motion a national movement for equality and freedom when she 
refused a bus driver's order to give her seat to a white man. The bill 
I'm about to sign calls for a statue of Rosa Parks to be placed in the 
Capitol's National Statuary Hall.
    By placing her statue in the heart of the Nation's Capitol, we 
commemorate her work for a more perfect union, and we commit ourselves 
to continue to struggle for justice for every American.
    I'm honored the Secretary of State has joined us as well as 
Secretary Alphonso Jackson. I want to thank the bill sponsors, Jesse 
Jackson, Jr.--I see you brought some of your family with you--
[laughter]--Senator John Kerry, Senator Thad Cochran, Senator Dick Lugar 
joining us as well.
    I'm proud that Bruce Gordon is here. He's the president and CEO of 
the NAACP. Thanks for joining us, Bruce. I want to thank all the civil 
rights leaders who've joined us as well. I particularly want to say 
thanks to Elaine Steele, representative of the Rosa Parks Institute.
    Elaine Eason Steele. Right here.
    The President. Thank you. Welcome. We've got a seat for you.
    It's great to see Dr. Dorothy Height as well. Welcome, Dr. Height. I 
want to thank all of Rosa Parks' family who have joined us as well. 
You're kind to come.
    Rosa Parks was the daughter of the South who worked as a seamstress 
at a department store in a Montgomery, Alabama. On December 1, 1955, she 
boarded a city bus. Under local and State law, African Americans had to 
give up their seats if any white people were standing. But after a 
lifetime of discrimination and a hard day's work, Rosa refused. As she 
would say later, quote, ``I wasn't tired physically or no more tired 
than I usually was at the end of a working day. No, the only tired I 
was, was tired of giving in.''
    By refusing to give in, Rosa Parks showed that one candle can light 
the darkness. Like so many institutionalized evils, segregation 
ultimately depended on public accommodation. Like so many 
institutionalized evils, once the ugliness of these laws was held up to 
the light, they could not stand. Like so many institutionalized evils, 
these laws proved no match for the power of an awakened conscience, and 
as a result, the cruelty and humiliation of the Jim Crow laws are now a 
thing of the past.
    By refusing to give in, Rosa Parks helped inspire a nationwide 
effort for equal justice under the law. When she refused to yield her 
seat, Mrs. Parks was arrested, convicted of violating the segregation 
laws, and fined $10, plus $4 in court fees. Her arrest sparked

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a boycott of the Montgomery bus lines by its black passengers and the 
formation of a local association of African Americans led by a young 
preacher named Martin Luther King, Jr. The boycott ended more than a 
year later after the Supreme Court struck down segregation on buses. 
What had begun as a simple act of civil disobedience ended up 
galvanizing the modern movement for civil rights.
    By refusing to give in, Rosa Parks called America back to its 
founding promise of equality and justice for everyone. When the police 
officer boarded the bus and told the seamstress that he had to arrest 
her, he explained that the law was the law. Rosa and the black ministers 
who defended her invoked more than the law; they invoked the 
Constitution and pointed to a higher law. Our Declaration of 
Independence makes clear that the human right to dignity and equality is 
not a grant of Government. It is the gift of the Author of Life. And by 
holding our Nation true to the words of its founding document, Rosa 
Parks helped her fellow African Americans claim their God-given freedoms 
and made America a better place.
    Eventually the civil rights movement would succeed in persuading 
Congress to pass more sweeping legislation that dealt with voting rights 
and discrimination in public places and school segregation, and the 
United States Congress should renew the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
    Dr. King liked to say that our Civil Rights Act was written in the 
streets by the citizens who marched for justice and equality. And on 
this day, we remember the great inspiration this movement drew from the 
quiet courage shown by an Alabama woman riding home on a Cleveland 
Avenue bus.
    It is fitting that this America hero will now be honored with a 
monument inside the most visible symbol of American democracy. We hope 
that generations of Americans will remember what this brave woman did 
and be inspired to add their own contributions to the unfolding story of 
American freedom for all.
    And now it's my honor to sign the bill that will make Rosa Parks the 
first African American woman to be honored with a statue in our Nation's 
Capitol.

Note: The President spoke at 10:33 a.m. in Room 450 in the Dwight D. 
Eisenhower Executive Office Building. In his remarks, he referred to 
Elaine Eason Steele, co-founder, Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for 
Self Development; and civil rights leader Dorothy I. Height. H.R. 4145, 
approved December 1, was assigned Public Law No. 109-116.