From Son to Mother: In Memory of Rosa Parks
By Rev. Dr. Kenneth Clarke
Greetings, fellow bloggers, and to my brother in struggle and fraternal service Zach Williams.
I commend you for initiating this important service addressing the reality of what it means to be a black male in the world, historically and contemporarily. I have posted a blog that could be construed as one black man's appreciation of the late Rosa Parks. These were comments delivered at Cornell University, where a memorial service and candlelight vigil were held.
Closing Remarks-Rosa Parks Memorial and Candlelight ServiceSage Chapel, 1 November 2005 Kenneth I. Clarke, Sr.Director, Cornell United Religious Work.
Here we are, forty nine years and eleven months to the very day a relatively obscure, unassuming seamstress in Montgomery, ALA was arrested for a quiet but resolute act of defiance against injustice. Now the name of Rosa Parks is no longer obscure. She is so well known that her former employer, Michigan Congressman John Conyers, said that when Nelson Mandela made his first visit to Detroit to speak after his release from prison he led the audience in a chant to honor her. It was then, Conyers said, that he recognized that Rosa Parks was celebrated as an “international phenomenon.”
Such was her significance in life that in death she would become the first woman to lie in honor in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol, thanks to the leadership in the U.S. Congress of women whose path she paved, black women such as Eleanor Holmes Norton and Julia Carson. There in the Rotunda this once obscure seamstress would once again make history in a place typically reserved for presidents and war heros. Yet Rosa Parks, as was Thurgood Marshall—the only other African American to lie in honor in the Rotunda—was in fact a war hero. A war hero of another sort. A war hero in the fight against racism. A war hero in the struggle to produce a more perfect union. A war hero in the struggle between those who would contract, and in effect eviscerate, democracy and those who would expand, and therefore preserve, democracy. She fought this war with the weapon of nonviolent resistance to evil, not, as nonviolence is often misconstrued, a passive capitulation to violence.
Rosa Parks’ simple act of noncooperation with evil was a significant ripple in the waters that changed the tide of history and gave courage to oppressed peoples everywhere. She sat down, as so many said in the tributes of these recent days, so that others could stand up. And we are all able to stand a little taller, no longer stooped by or acquiescent to or implicated by, in silence, ignorance or indifference, to an American Apartheid. When she refused to give up her seat on 1 December 1955, then pleaded not guilty to the charges of breaking the Montgomery City ordinance, she embodied the title of the old Negro spiritual “I Shall Not be Moved,” a song inspired by Psalm 1 of the Jewish and Christian scriptures. She sat so that others could stand.Rosa Parks did not know, 49 years and 11 months ago, how her simple act would help ignite a movement, reform a society and impact the world. Part of her abundant legacy to us is to take action in the name of justice, in the name of human dignity, in the name of truth, in the name of God by whatever name we may call God. We do not know what difference it may make in the lives of others. In the yesteryear of December 1955 Rosa Parks lit a candle by her action instead of cursing the darkness that was racial segregation. Today, in her memory, we light candles to symbolize the endurance of her legacy.
Greetings, fellow bloggers, and to my brother in struggle and fraternal service Zach Williams.
I commend you for initiating this important service addressing the reality of what it means to be a black male in the world, historically and contemporarily. I have posted a blog that could be construed as one black man's appreciation of the late Rosa Parks. These were comments delivered at Cornell University, where a memorial service and candlelight vigil were held.
Closing Remarks-Rosa Parks Memorial and Candlelight ServiceSage Chapel, 1 November 2005 Kenneth I. Clarke, Sr.Director, Cornell United Religious Work.
Here we are, forty nine years and eleven months to the very day a relatively obscure, unassuming seamstress in Montgomery, ALA was arrested for a quiet but resolute act of defiance against injustice. Now the name of Rosa Parks is no longer obscure. She is so well known that her former employer, Michigan Congressman John Conyers, said that when Nelson Mandela made his first visit to Detroit to speak after his release from prison he led the audience in a chant to honor her. It was then, Conyers said, that he recognized that Rosa Parks was celebrated as an “international phenomenon.”
Such was her significance in life that in death she would become the first woman to lie in honor in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol, thanks to the leadership in the U.S. Congress of women whose path she paved, black women such as Eleanor Holmes Norton and Julia Carson. There in the Rotunda this once obscure seamstress would once again make history in a place typically reserved for presidents and war heros. Yet Rosa Parks, as was Thurgood Marshall—the only other African American to lie in honor in the Rotunda—was in fact a war hero. A war hero of another sort. A war hero in the fight against racism. A war hero in the struggle to produce a more perfect union. A war hero in the struggle between those who would contract, and in effect eviscerate, democracy and those who would expand, and therefore preserve, democracy. She fought this war with the weapon of nonviolent resistance to evil, not, as nonviolence is often misconstrued, a passive capitulation to violence.
Rosa Parks’ simple act of noncooperation with evil was a significant ripple in the waters that changed the tide of history and gave courage to oppressed peoples everywhere. She sat down, as so many said in the tributes of these recent days, so that others could stand up. And we are all able to stand a little taller, no longer stooped by or acquiescent to or implicated by, in silence, ignorance or indifference, to an American Apartheid. When she refused to give up her seat on 1 December 1955, then pleaded not guilty to the charges of breaking the Montgomery City ordinance, she embodied the title of the old Negro spiritual “I Shall Not be Moved,” a song inspired by Psalm 1 of the Jewish and Christian scriptures. She sat so that others could stand.Rosa Parks did not know, 49 years and 11 months ago, how her simple act would help ignite a movement, reform a society and impact the world. Part of her abundant legacy to us is to take action in the name of justice, in the name of human dignity, in the name of truth, in the name of God by whatever name we may call God. We do not know what difference it may make in the lives of others. In the yesteryear of December 1955 Rosa Parks lit a candle by her action instead of cursing the darkness that was racial segregation. Today, in her memory, we light candles to symbolize the endurance of her legacy.
posted by Zach Williams at 11:41 AM
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