Soror Rosa Parks Remembered

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OHIO HOUSE DECLARES DEC. 1 ROSA PARKS DAY
State joins Michigan in honoring civil-rights icon
Published: Thursday, November 17, 2005

By Jim Siegel
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Ohio will be the second state to designate Dec. 1, 2005, as Rosa Parks Day, honoring the civil-rights icon on the anniversary of the day she refused to give up her seat on a public bus to a white rider.

The House unanimously passed a resolution yesterday to honor Parks, who died in October at age 92. Rep. Joyce Beatty, the sponsor, said she hopes the legislature includes the designation in state law next year through a separate bill.


If passed, Ohio would be the first state to place Rosa Parks Day in state law, meaning it would be recognized every year on Dec. 1.

"It's important to me that American history, particularly with African-Americans, continues to be told," said Beatty, a Columbus Democrat. "We consider her to be the mother of the civil-rights movement, and because of her act, America is all the better."

Parks sparked the modern civil-rights movement on Dec. 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Ala., when she refused to give up her seat near the front of a public bus. Led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., blacks organized a 382-day boycott of the city-owned bus company, and the U.S. Supreme Court eventually outlawed racial segregation on public transportation.

Beatty said the Central Ohio Transit Authority will join public-transit authorities across the nation on Dec. 1 in honoring the 50th anniversary of Parks' action by keeping open a front seat on each bus.

Michigan is the only other state that has designated this Dec. 1 as Rosa Parks Day.