If you do NOT know who this is, please go to your nearest library/bookstore/internet site, and look up civil rights movements. IF you are NOT aware that she died, or thought she died a long time ago, please pick up a newspaper once in a while. I feel no obligation to telling you who she is. If you do not know....please, dont embarass yourself by asking........go look it up on your own.
How many blogs did you find that said RIP Peter Jennings? Loads right? Me too.
How many blogs did you find that said RIP Rosa Parks? None right? Me neither.
At the memorial service that went on today in Detroit, that was broadcast live, there were so many people, to pay respect to this woman....the Mother of the Civil Rights movement they called her.....I dont disagree.
Speakers like John Kerry, BOTH Clintons, and a bunch of other senatorial and congress members were in attendance and spoke on her behalf. I LAUGHED out loud, when Hillary Cinton says something along the lines of "she voted in a day when she wasnt allowed to vote. Let this be a lesson to us, in a day and age where it is our duty to vote. Make sure you're voice is heard, and make your vote counts.....and lets make sure all of the votes are counted"
Kerry said something along the same lines when he said "in a day where every vote counts, and is counted, and the color of your skin is not"
In recognizing that B. Clinton was there, one democratic representative for the state of Michigan was there and looked over at Clinton, and said, I thanked you last, and most importantly, becuse we miss the days of democracy in Washington"
Talk about being diplomatic in a very biting way! And I wondered.....as I watched face after face get up and commend the life of this woman, and couldnt help but wonder where all the Republican representatives were......
Do they not feel that her message, and example is as important as the Democrats do? Everyone was wonderfully spoken, and eloquently political and democratic in biting undertones.....I am lucky to have seen it.
RIP Rosa Parks - 1913-2005....Mother of the Civil Rights Movement.
11 comments:
Before Jenny gets on here and says "I posted about this" Let me take a minute to acknowledge that JENNY posted about this.....when I said "no blogs made reference", I wasnt meaning "not one blog made reference" I meant, in comparison...
When she died, I was reminded of something very very sad about society.
The act that she is most remembered for happened in 1955. For some reason, I thought it was much longer ago than that. Granted, I'm horrible at remembering dates.
This realization just hit me - 1955 places this event in my PARENTS' time. I kind of always thought of it as an event of my GRANDPARENTS' day. Sure, my parents were toddlers, but still.
Anyhoo, those are my two cents.
..Segregation is horrifingly realistic when you can put in the context of your own life...or of someone you knew....becuase it reminds us that as far as we've come...it wasnt very long ago that these events took place.
blepharisma,
i thought the same thing...
pp,
i did not know that she had sied. that is very sad. i'm glad i came back to your post.....i put it up on my post today as well.....RIP
Ah, it must be nice to watch all the current US political crap and know that you live in Canada. I am jealous =)
I felt the same way as blepharisma and katie . . .
It makes me feel bad for not paying more attention to what goes on outside my little world.
Wish I had seen it. Loved the comment on Clinton from the representative.
-N
Thanks PP, I was about to come in here with both guns blazing about how you should get your %&@#$! eyes checked or not read my blog while smoking crack! Ha!
Anyway, I love that line about missing democracy in Washington, it's brilliant! I miss the days of democracy in Washington too. It's ironic to talk about the importance of the civil rights movement and the quest for the right to vote in the context of the present day in the US, what difference does it make if you have the right to vote any more when the last two elections they had were jokes.
Actually, I don't know if anyone else here has visited the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis or the Martin Luther King Museum in Atlanta - but they are both really worthwhile. Anyway, at the Civil Rights Musuem they have a wheel that you can spin, (like Wheel of Fortune or one of those games). The idea is that you pretend that it's I forget what year, but not long after blacks got the vote, and you are an African American who is trying to vote. So you spin the wheel to see what the voting official says when you go up to the poll on the day of the election. There are 30 slots on the wheel and 29 of them are things like, "You have to take a literacy test first." or "Your papers are out of order." One chance in 30 is how likely you were to get to vote, even if you were eligible to vote, if you were black. I spun the wheel 3 or 4 times and never actually got to vote.
That exercise begs the question, how far has it come. Eligible black voters were disenfranchised in record numbers in the last election and the one before that. Republicans know that black Americans don't vote Republican, so they try to block them from voting every which way.
Let's memorialize Rosa Parks by campaigning for African Americans to get the vote again.
i posted about rosa parks on my blog the after she died.
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