Rosa Parks, Civil Rights Icon Dies at 92

[Michel Nau*]

Bus Ride Shook a Nation's Conscience
By Patricia Sullivan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 25, 2005; A01

Rosa Parks, the dignified African American seamstress whose refusal to surrender a bus seat to a white man launched the modern civil rights movement and inspired generations of activists, died last night at her home in Detroit, the Wayne County medical examiner's office said. She was 92.
No cause of death was reported immediately. She had dementia since 2002.

"Rosa was a true giant of the civil rights movement," said U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), in whose office Parks worked for more than 20 years. "There are very few people who can say their actions and conduct changed the face of the nation, and Rosa Parks is one of those individuals."

Parks said that she didn't fully realize what she was
starting when she decided not to move on that Dec. 1, 1955, evening in Montgomery, Ala. It was a simple refusal, but her arrest and the resulting protests began the complex cultural struggle to legally guarantee equal rights to Americans of all races.

Within days, her arrest sparked a 380-day bus boycott, which led to a U.S. Supreme Court decision that desegregated her city's public transportation. Her arrest also triggered mass demonstrations, made the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. famous, and transformed schools, workplaces and housing.

Hers was "an individual expression of a timeless longing for human dignity and freedom," King said in his book "Stride Toward Freedom."

"She was planted there by her personal sense of dignity and self-respect. She was anchored to that seat by the accumulated indignities of days gone and the boundless aspirations of generations yet unborn."

She was the perfect test-case plaintiff, a fact that activists realized only after she had been arrested. [b:
dfc2d38cd4]Hardworking, polite and morally upright,[/b] Parks had long seethed over the everyday indignities of segregation, from the menial rules of bus seating and store entrances to the mortal societal endorsement of lynching and imprisonment.

She was an activist already, secretary of the local chapter of the NAACP. A member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church all her life, Parks admired the self-help philosophy of Booker T. Washington -- to a point. But even as a child, she thought accommodating segregation was the wrong philosophy. She knew that in the previous year, two other women had been arrested for the same offense, but neither was deemed right to handle the role that was sure to become one of the most controversial of the century.

But it was as if Parks was born to the role. Rosa McCauley was born Feb. 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Alabama, the home of Booker T. Washington's renowned Tuskegee Institute, which drew ma
ny African American intelligentsia. She was the daughter of a carpenter and a teacher, was small for her age, had poor health and suffered chronic tonsillitis. Still a child when her parents separated, she moved with her mother to Pine Level, Ala., and grew up in an extended family that included her maternal grandparents.

Her mother taught Parks at home until she was 11, when she was enrolled in the Industrial School for Girls in Montgomery, where her aunt lived. Segregation was enforced, often violently. As an adult, she recalled watching her grandfather guard the front door with a shotgun as the Ku Klux Klan paraded down their road. Her younger brother, Sylvester, a decorated war hero in World War II, returned to a South that regarded uniformed veterans of color as "uppity" and demonstrated its disdain with beatings.

She married barber Raymond Parks in 1932 at her mother's house. They shared a passion for civil rights; her husband was an early defender of the Scottsboro Boys, a group of young
African Americans whom rights advocates asserted were falsely accused of raping two white women.

At her husband's urging, Parks finally earned her high school degree in 1933, when fewer than 7 percent of blacks had graduated from high school. About the same time, she was finally allowed to register to vote -- on her third try. She briefly was able to see past the racial separation of the times when she worked at Maxwell Air Force Base, where segregation was banned.

"I could ride on an integrated trolley bus on the base," she told biographer Douglas Brinkley, "but when I left the base, I had to ride home on a segregated bus. . . . You might just say Maxwell opened my eyes up."

She was a volunteer secretary to E.D. Nixon, president of the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP, while working as a seamstress and housekeeper to a white couple, Virginia and Clifford Durr. The Durrs became her friends, and they suggested -- and sponsored -- her attendance at a training workshop on racial desegregati
on at the Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tenn., in the summer of 1955.

So a few months later, in the winter of 1955, when Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus, it was with the knowledge of both the everyday indignities of segregation and the building momentum of the civil rights movement.

Parks was working as a seamstress for the Montgomery Fair department store, and as she waited for the Cleveland Avenue bus to take her home, she let a full bus go by. The Jim Crow laws reserved the first four rows of a city bus for whites and the last 10 for blacks. The seats in the middle could be used by blacks if no whites sought them. But if a white person wanted a seat, the whole row was emptied.

Also, bus drivers in Montgomery made blacks, who were nearly 70 percent of the riders, enter the front door, pay their fare, disembark and re-enter by the back door. Many blacks were left standing, fareless, when the bus driver pulled away before they could reboard.

James F. Blake, the
driver of the bus Parks boarded in 1955, had put her off a bus in 1943 when she refused to enter through the back door because the back was jammed. After that, she refused to board any bus he drove, but when the bus pulled up to the Court Square stop, Parks forgot to check who the driver was. She got on and took a seat in the middle section, next to a black man at the window and across the aisle from two women. At the next stop, some white people got on, filling up the seats reserved for them, and one white man was left standing.

"Let me have those front seats," the driver said, indicating the front seats of the middle section. No one moved. He repeated himself: "Y'all better make it light on yourselves and let me have those seats."

The black rider by the window rose, and Parks moved to let him pass by. The two women across the aisle also stood up. Parks slid over to the window. "I could not see how standing up was going to 'make it light' for me," she wrote in her autobiography, "My Story" (
1992). "The more we gave in and complied, the worse they treated us.

"I thought back to the time when I used to sit up all night and didn't sleep, and my grandfather would have his gun right by the fireplace, or if he had his one-horse wagon going anywhere, he always had his gun in the back of the wagon," she wrote. "People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in."

The bus driver said he would have her arrested, and she replied, "You may do that." He called the police and waited. Some riders got off, but not everyone, and Parks recalled that it was very quiet. When the police arrived, she asked one, "Why do you all push us around?" She said he replied, "I don't know, but the law is the law, and you're under arrest."
nShe was bailed out that night, and her boss at the NAACP asked if she would be the test case for a lawsuit.

She discussed it with her husband and mother and then agreed. Meanwhile, the leaders of the Women's Political Council mimeographed 35,000 handbills calling for a bus boycott. Black ministers got behind the effort. All 18 black-owned cab companies agreed to stop at all bus stops and charge 10 cents per ride, while others carpooled or walked.

As Parks went into her trial, a young girl called out, "Oh, she's so sweet. They've messed with the wrong one now." The crowd took up the latter half of the cry.

She was found guilty of violating the segregation law and fined. Her attorneys, afraid that the charge might be overturned without the underlying law being addressed, filed a petition with the U.S. District Court that directly challenged the law. It was a wise strategy: Parks's original appeal was dismissed and the conviction upheld, so it was the secon
d case that went to the Supreme Court about a year later, and the court overturned the segregation laws.

Although her action fueled the smoldering rights movement, there had been sparks before. A five-week bus boycott in 1900 in Montgomery succeeded in breaking segregation, but 20 years later, the reemergence of the Ku Klux Klan brought it back. A Supreme Court decision in 1946, a case argued by future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, outlawed Jim Crow segregation in interstate transportation. A 1953 bus boycott in Baton Rouge, La., desegregated that city's public transit. A Columbia, S.C., woman sued, and won, over segregation of her city's buses in 1954.

Parks, who had never been anything but poor, suffered financially in the immediate aftermath of the December arrest.
"In fact if I had let myself think too deeply about what might happen to me, I might have gotten off the bus," she said in her autobiography.

She lost her job at the department store. Her husband quit his job
after his boss ordered that no mention be made of "Rosa" or the case. She traveled extensively, speaking and raising funds for the legal fight.

Fed up with telephone death threats and worried about the firebombings of supporters' houses, the Parks moved to Detroit in August 1957, to live near her younger brother. In 1958, Parks accepted a job at Hampton Institute in Virginia as a hostess at an inn, but there wasn't room for her husband and mother, and she moved back after a year and began working as a seamstress.

In 1965, she became a staff assistant for Conyers, working for him until she retired in 1988. Her husband died in 1977, and her mother died in 1980.

In 1987, with the help of Elaine Eason Steele, Parks founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Improvement, a youth assistance organization in Detroit. Its basic program takes young people on an educational tour that visits sites of importance in the civil rights movement, from the Underground Railroad on.

Even
after that, Parks's life remained difficult. She was hospitalized in 1994 after a burglar broke into her house and beat and robbed her. After her recovery, she moved to a high-rise building in downtown Detroit. Five years later, upset at the unauthorized use of her name in a title of a song by the rap group OutKast, she sued. The suit was unsuccessful.

Near the end of her life, accolades belatedly arrived. Historians noted that she had often been left off the dais at anniversary events of the rights movement. She was a late addition to the Detroit greeting committee when Nelson Mandela came to the United States in 1990. But upon spotting her in the reception line, historian Brinkley said, the Nobel Peace Prize winner paid tribute by chanting her name.

A museum-and-library facility on the Montgomery corner where she boarded the Cleveland Avenue bus is named for her. She was given the Medal of Honor, the highest award that the U.S. government bestows, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the na
tion's highest civilian award. More than 40 colleges and universities gave her honorary doctorates, and her name is cited in virtually every U.S. history book that addresses the civil rights movement.

[Zanfanginen*]

Thank you, Rosa Parks and may your soul rest peacefully in the hands of God!

[guysanto*]

Michel, thank you for posting this informative article. I was always struck by the potent symbolism of Rosa Parks, in reality a frail and gentle human being, yet with a fierce determination that became a driving force of the civil rights movement. When I heard of her passing away last evening, I wanted to post an article right away to the forum, but I could not find an obituary of substance. Once again, thank you for posting this, because the article brings out a lot of details about Rosa Parks that I did not know previously.

Thank you, Rosa, for having contributed to make our lives in these United States a much more convenient one. We all owe you an eternal debt of gratitude.

Que la terre vous soit légère!

[Michel Nau*]

Rosa was the mother of the civil rights movement. Her arrest triggered mass demonstrations, made the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. famous and opened the eyes of a lot of people of color.

During the 40’s and 50’s, some Haitian businessmen traveled to the USA to meet their american counterparts have had culture shock when they realized that they had to sleep in different hotels, eat in different restaurants, even to urinate at different bathrooms. Ti pô klè a pat vlè di anyen!!
My folks and other Haitians that I knew went through those hard times of humiliations.

Thank you Mrs. Parks for paving the ways and for standing up for our rights so the voiceless, the powerless, the hopeless, the jobless like us can sit down anywhere in the bus with dignity.

_____________________________________________________

Guy, you and the Ann Pale members are welcome!! I have been busy lately. I am organizing the next mayoral election in
my community.

In addition, Georgetown University, The Center for Latin American Studies, Central America and the Caribbean Student Working Group is sponsoring a series of events on Haiti. The first one was last Thursday October 20, 2005. The title was Haiti: Do elections really matter? The guest speakers were Ericq Pierre, Senior Counselor for Haiti Inter-American Development Bank, and Katleen Florestal, Advisor to the Executive Director Haiti, international Monetary Fund.

The second one is scheduled for tomorrow Wednesday, October 26th, titled: Haitians in America: A Status Report with Dr. Robert Maguire, Director of Programs in International Affairs, Trinity University.

The third and last event is scheduled for Tuesday, November 15th titled: Haiti’s Elections: Responses from the International Community. Panelists include Mark Schneider, Senior Vice-President, International Crisis Group; Georges Fauriol, Senior Vice-President, International Republican Institute; and Luigi Einaudi, Form
er Assistant Secretary General, Organization of American States.

I will keep you guys posted!!

Thanks

Michel

[Dunord*]

"I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in." Rosa Parks

When I read this for some reason I thought about the airport in Port au Prince and the self-important asses that come late and push past everyone to get to the front of the line as if the rest of us are nothing. The Haitians from the US and Canada don't seem to put up with that garbage nearly as much as the Haitians of Haiti. It says something.
Dunord

[MichelNau*]

Dunord wrote:

When I read this for some reason I thought about the airport in Port au Prince and the self-important asses that come late and push past everyone to get to the front of the line as if the rest of us are nothing. The Haitians from the US and Canada don't seem to put up with that garbage nearly as much as the Haitians of Haiti. It says something.

Dunord ! My apology on behalf of those Haitian jackasses who come late and push past everyone to get to the front of the line as if the rest of you is nothing.
As long as you have your airline ticket and your seat number, the plane couldn’t leave you. You will get in, and you will be seated like everybody else.

In Rosa Parks’ case, she bought her ticket like everybody else, but because of the color of her skin and the segregation laws, she had to give up her seat, and stood up so a white person could be seated. That’s sucks!!!

Than
ks to her, now nobody, black or white has to give up hi/her seat.
Anybody could take a seat anywhere in first class or poulaye.

Mezi lajan w mezi rouga w!!

Ou pa bezwen estomake mon fre, nou tout pral memm kote, and frankly my dear, I am not in a hurry.

Michel

[Leonel Jean-Baptiste*]

Michel, I agree that Rosa Parks was the Mother of the CIvil rights Movement.

But, there is a problem. Yes, we can sit in the buses without giving the seat to a White Person. Well, that White person OWNS the Bus Company. This is the shift post the Civil rights movement.

Yes, we came a long way, but not long enough. Segregation still exists and we cannot play dumb any longer.

When I go to Queens where my Mom lives. Who do you think owns the Buildings where thousands of Black People live? Who do you think ride the buses there?

This is the real Apartheid! Things are not the way they were supposed to be.

My Brothers and Sisters, they are playing with our mind like a musical instrument... The White Supremacist Machine let us sit in the Bus which it controls. It controls everything that we do, the Banks, Housing, Jobs etc etc.

What can we do about it? It's ok now, we can sit in the bus. We don't have to let a
White person take our seat. What am I saying, they don't use our Public Transportation that much anyway.

We used to point fingers at South Africa's Apartheid. What is this one called? Our loans are more expensive. Our jobs (if we have one) pay far less. We pay far more for our cars. I know that life is hard, but Harder for a Black person.

Frankly, I don't really care about sitting in Buses. I care more about more Ownerships from our Black Brothers and Sisters. For, I don't want to see the Louisiana image everytime I turn on my TV. Brothers and Sisters waiting for the White Helping Hands who most of them do not care about helping a "Lesser Being" (their views).

Malcom wanted us to own our Companies and be more self-sufficient. That is why we will never have a Malcom X Day...

Rosa Parks was a great Human Being who refused to be treated as Inferior. Paix a son Ame.

We need to do more, we are too dependent on that Racist System which is playing with our psyche.

One
Love!

leonel

[guysanto*]

Your message is right on, Leonel. It's good to remind us where true equality lies.

[Dunord*]

Michel,
The point is people who have grown up with apartheid seem to accept it and that is unfortunate. I personally don't tolerate the ill mannered boujwa. It is humorous to see their attitude change as soon as they arrive in Miami. They know they have in the space of 2 hours become a small fish in a big pond. [You can see the reverse of this from MIA to PaP]
Sometimes I feel like shouting as they walk out of the MIA airport, "Hey Boujwa ! You are now entering the food chain."

:D
Very Happy
Dunord

[MichelNau*]

Dunord wrote:

I personally don't tolerate the ill mannered boujwa. Sometimes I feel like shouting as they walk out of the MIA airport, "Hey Boujwa ! You are now entering the food chain."

Don’t generalize it Dunord! Those people are not all bourjwa. Some of them are: des parvenus, des « arivices” who despite all their money, don’t invest in their education, and the education of their children. Just ignore them!! They are not the future of Haiti! You are!

Leonel wrote:

Yes, we came a long way, but not long enough. Segregation still exists and we cannot play dumb any longer.

Leonel my friend! Segregation doesn’t exist anymore in America!!! Discrimination Yes! But it’s across the board, Black, White, Latino, illegal immigrants etc.

Leonel wrote:

When I go to Queens where my Mom lives. Who do you think owns the Buildings where thousands of B
lack People live? Who do you think ride the buses there?

She shouldn’t care who owns the building where she lives as long as she is being treated fairly, and with dignity.

Leonel wrote:

My Brothers and Sisters, they are playing with our mind like a musical instrument... The White Supremacist Machine let us sit in the Bus which it controls. It controls everything that we do the Banks, Housing, Jobs etc etc. we are too dependent on that Racist System which is playing with our psyche.

Right on my brother! Right on!! Black Power!!! Fight the Power!! Alleluia and amen!!

Leonel please enough of those 60’s and 70’s Black Panthers, and Muslim craps rally talks! Wake up! You are in 2005!!
For more than 40 years, we haven’t had a Martin Luther King, a Rosa Parks, nor a Malcom X. We are having a bunch of black activist charlatans who are thinking about themselves more than anything else. Things have changed my brother!

It’s good to
think globally, but it’s better to act locally.
Protect and cherish your family and your community, and you will be just fine.

Michel

[MichelNau*]

Washington Prepares To Pay Rosa Parks Rare Tribute at Capitol

By Petula Dvorak and Hamil R. Harris
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, October 29, 2005; A01

The nation's capital began preparations yesterday for a historic weekend, when civil rights matriarch Rosa Parks will become one of only 30 Americans ever honored with the pomp and ritual of a Capitol Rotunda viewing.

The woman who quietly refused to give up her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Ala., a half-century ago will be the first woman and the second African American to lie at the same exalted place as presidents and war heroes.

The tribute became official yesterday when the House passed a resolution approved earlier by the Senate, honoring a woman whose courage helped spark the civil rights movement and, eventually, landmark federal legislation.


So, yesterday, the machinery of protocol began its decades-old ritual of remembrance. The Rotunda will be open for public viewing of Parks's coffin from 6:30 p.m. to midnight tomorrow and from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. Monday.

Many expect the vigil to draw crowds of people who remember Parks as a role model and an icon of the civil rights movements.
"I can't imagine a higher honor than this," said Richard Baker, chief Senate historian, who has studied and documented events beneath the great dome for three decades.

Parks transcended the partisanship that has deadlocked Congress on other issues. Within days of her death, Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), who employed Parks for 20 years in his Detroit office, had moved the resolution through both houses of Congress, with support from both sides of the aisle.

Baker said of Parks: "It's been a long road from that bus seat to the Capitol Rotunda in Washington.
This is a great memorial to the courage of one person."


Buses will become part of the symbolism of the moment. Sixty Parks family members and dignitaries traveling from Montgomery will board three Metro buses draped in black bunting. The procession will be led to the Capitol by a 1957 bus, which will be empty of passengers, said Candace Smith, a Metro spokeswoman.

After memorials in Montgomery tomorrow, the coffin will be flown to the Washington area on a plane provided by Southwest Airlines and commanded by one of the first African American chief pilots for a commercial airline, said John C. White, spokesman for the NAACP.

The entourage and hearse are scheduled to arrive at the Capitol from Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport at 5:30 p.m. The coffin will enter the Capitol via the grand East Steps. There will be a tribute including a choir, wreath laying, and prayers, followed by the public viewing.

Mourners will line up at the West Entrance to be proces
sed through the visitor screening center. There will be 12 metal detectors to search for weapons and other prohibited items, including recording devices.

Police will not allow chairs, umbrellas, coolers, sleeping bags, large backpacks or other bulky items. Officials will not allow photography in the Rotunda; they have not yet decided whether to ban cameras. Prohibited items can be checked at the entrance and reclaimed after the viewing, said U.S. Capitol Police Chief Terrance W. Gainer, who will follow the same crowd-control plan used during President Ronald Reagan's viewing last year.

After the viewing Monday, the coffin will be taken to Metropolitan AME Church in downtown Washington for a 1 p.m. memorial service. D.C. police said they will restrict parking and traffic in the area of 15th and M streets NW all day for the service. Afterward, the coffin will be taken to BWI and flown to Detroit, where there will be another vigil and then burial Tuesday.

In the past, the nation has come t
o the Capitol to pay tribute to presidents, senators, generals and unknown soldiers. This is the first time a private citizen renowned for social activism and the first time a woman will be the focus of the ritual.
Mary Francis Berry, a former chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, said scores of people will pay tribute because Parks was a champion of ordinary people. "Here is a person who is in relative obscurity, who made an enormous change," Berry said.

"Sometimes the most unlikely people can make a difference if they are committed to a principle."

Parks is again making history, admirers said. "There has to be a standard for a civilian to be accorded such a high honor," said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.)

[b]"Rosa Parks has met that standard of extraordinary service to her country. She didn't have a weapon on her. She didn't have an organization behind her. All she had was her conviction."[/b:018
7b960c7]

The tribute, which requires an act of Congress, has taken place 30 times, historians say. The first person so honored was Henry Clay, in 1852. The last person was Reagan, in June of last year. Others were nine presidents, eight members of Congress, an admiral, two generals, two government officials, two Capitol police officers slain at their posts, unknown soldiers and Pierre Charles L'Enfant, the architect who designed Washington, D.C.

"I think it's a very powerful message honoring Ms. Parks and, therefore, so many who did so much for the cause of equality," said Mark Pelavin, associate director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. "More than that, highlighting Ms. Parks is an opportunity to highlight the tremendous impact that one individual can have, even in moving a nation."

The Rev. Grainger Browning Jr., pastor of Ebenezer AME Church in Fort Washington, said he expects many from his flock to attend the tribute at the Capitol because members of the Parks famil
y were longtime members of the church.

Fred Gray, the Alabama lawyer who represented Parks after she was arrested, said many leaders of the civil rights movement will be scrambling to get to Washington this weekend.

[Leonel Jean-Baptiste*]

Michel, I am not trying to insult you. But, do you really mean what you said or you are just playing...

I would be surprised if you said otherwise. You are plugged somewhere in DC. They are watching us, therefore, Michou has to watch what he is saying.

I got news for you, my Friend. These people are using you like Chewing gum. Discard after usage. I am pretty sure, you have the privilege to be part of some of their parties like a lot of Republicans Wannabees. Your mind is twisted.

Don't you see anything wrong about Rosa Parks in the same room as Ronald Reagan. It's like putting Mandela or Castro in the same room where GW is. Big contrast.

By the way, Black Panthers were feeding the Poors. What is wrong with that?

Leonel my friend! Segregation doesn’t exist anymore in America!!! Discrimination Yes! But it’s across the board, Black, White, Latino, illegal immigrants etc.
[/quote
]

Are you serious, or are you suffering from dementia, blindness, or something else?

There are other quotes, I can not entertain the thought of answering. You are a Happy Big Jim! The Masser ain't bad after all. We shouldn't care about all the wealths accumulated on our behalf...

Leonel please enough of those 60’s and 70’s Black Panthers, and Muslim craps rally talks! Wake up! You are in 2005!!
For more than 40 years, we haven’t had a Martin Luther King, a Rosa Parks, nor a Malcom X. We are having a bunch of black activist charlatans who are thinking about themselves more than anything else. Things have changed my brother!

It’s good to think globally, but it’s better to act locally.
Protect and cherish your family and your community, and you will be just fine.

I believe that I am sober,. And guess what? Unlike you, mwen pap pran kaka poul pou jOn ze.

If you think that they were Craps, you really need to wake up.

nUse the supposedly powerful organ which is called BRAIN: What have they done for you lately?

You've been used to polluting any forum with your senseless views for a long time, my friend. Hopefully, they can call you for the recent vacancy in Cheney's office.

It's 2005, Rise, Rise, Apply, you never know?

Hopefully, you will be our Michaelle Jean!

Masser is so great, he lets you go to the back door, and he called you Boy!

Ainsi soit il.

School doesn't really help the Blind!

leonel

[Nekita Lamour*]

Leonel,
What's the matter? Calm down. We are remembering a peaceful woman. I know a lot of us are still blind. But we got to be more creative thinkers. Yelling and screaming is not getting us anywhere. You referred to Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, two religious figures. I don't know if people agree with me. I feel the Black church had died with Martin. We know that Malcolm went through some conversion in terms of his racist attitude after his pilgrimage from Mecca, but that did not prevent his own Black brothers from killing him. We have our own issues also as Blacks to internally solve.

I met Rosa Parks about 20 years ago. She came to the inauguration of a school I worked at for 12 years because the school "Graham/Parks" was being named after her and another state rep from Cambridge, Mass. I had one of my Haitian students present her a piece of artifact from Haiti. I am wondering what she has done with
that piece of mahogany.

One thing that struck me and I am sure many light-skinned Haitians have gone through a lot racism here: Rosa Parks is a very light-skinned woman with long hair, what we call "mulat" in Haiti. I heard when those "mulat" that my daughter calls the "blan Haitians" came to Florida in the late l950's and early l960's, having had to sit in the back of the bus and all the segregation prejudices they went through was such a culture shock.

I met a Haitian, born here in the early l950's who looks very white and can pass for white who told me she was called a "nigger" in a New England boarding school.

I really like talking with these blan Haitians. I don't know how they behave when they go to Haiti, but here in the US, the racial prejudice appears to make them transformed individuals.

Nekita

[Leonel Jean-Baptiste*]

Nekita, I am calm.

The Buck does not stop her. Rosa Parks was an Icon to the the Civil Rights movement. What about the other two women who did the same thing a year earlier???

By the way, Malcom got wiser like everyone does with age and experience. His killing or assassination was not the act of those black fools alone. He had to be killed, for entertaining the thoughts of Black people having their own businesses. This was more powerful than anything else in the Civil Rights era.

We consume more sneakers or other goods. But yet, the media is off-limit. A group of Black men/women were denied to own either NBC or CBS... Now, you know about the role of the Media in 2000 elections?

We cannot be too satisfied, my friends. We have a long way to go. Almost everyone of us is being watched. We cannot say or make any comment whithout suffering the consequences. Your bosses who control your life basically, can decide when to con
nect or disconnect you. This is called Total Dependency.

If you think that Katrina's result in Louisiana was an accident, think again. We will see the same reaction when there is a natural disaster. We'll be the last ones to be rescue.

A few decades ago, we talked about guns in the public schools. No one came to the rescue. I remember that Erasmus H.S. was like a jungle in the 80's. But it took Columbine to see there was a major problem with guns in school.

Now, for someone who really thinks that we are in 2005, segregation is over. I think that person needs serious help!

For all of us who live in the suburbs where the Public Schools are the top twenties in the US, we can see the major differences in the inner-cities. When I see that a lot of us spend their life and energy in a job where there is no prospect for promotion (you hit the glass ceiling); when I see that, in the inner cities, it takes the Police or First Aid about twenty minutes to respond; when I get slammed on my c
ar by the police for DWB (driving while black); when I see that someone got shot for getting his wallet out...my friend, we don't need a Ph.D. to understand what is going on.

It can happen to any of us. It is called: Discrimination or segregation.

For someone who does not know the meaning of DISCRIMINATION= Treating someone differently. Differentiate, Distance, Segregate (oops, based on Larousse)...

I rest my case, my friend!

There was South Africa, there is America!

Nap konn jOj!

leonel

[Nekita Lamour*]

Leonel,

I share some of your ideas in terms of buying sneakers and the differences between public and private schools. I think a lot of it have to do with learning. I think many of us once we have a job, we stop learning. As you refer to those dead end jobs, many of us are satisfied that we have had a job that had provided us a house, or a car or for many Haitians living conditions that were not possible for them in Haiti.

To go back to your point on consumeurism, as Haitians we are consumer of goods that don’t improve our diasporic communities or Haiti herself.

We need to invest in our human beings, our Haitian minds and souls. We invest in material goods, not in humans. Many of those in charge are not aware that human knowledge produces the goods. Most materials goods that we invest in don’t produce the knowledge that is needed to develop a strong country or a strong diasporic community.


As the prophet Hosea in 4:6 says” My people have perished for lack of knowledge.” We are perishing even in the western countries we live in with all the means that are available to get the knowledge to make our Haitian communities vibrant because of our mindset.

Let’s make learning and sharing from one another a priority in our communities.
Nekita