I was hoping that this would happen.
From Salon.com (you may have to watch an ad to get it free for one day):
Black civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks would become the first woman to lie in honor in the Capitol Rotunda under resolutions considered Thursday by lawmakers.
Parks’ refusal to give up her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Ala., in 1955 led to a 381-day boycott of the city’s bus system and helped spark the modern civil rights movement. She died Monday in Detroit at age 92.
The Senate approved a resolution Thursday allowing her remains to lie in honor in the Rotunda on Sunday and Monday “so that the citizens of the United States may pay their last respects to this great American.” The House was expected to consider the resolution Friday.
Of course, only former presidents, sitting presidents who die in office, members of Congress and military commanders are given this honor.
Additionally, Parks will lie in repose not only in Detroit but in other locations. Rep. John Conyers, who was once Parks’ employer, and Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick have sponsored the bill allowing for Parks to lie in state. They are also working in conjunction with the Rosa & Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development in making these funeral arrangements.
The Capitol event was one of several planned to honor the civil rights pioneer. Parks will lie in repose Saturday at the St. Paul AME Church in Montgomery, Ala., and a memorial service will be held at the church Sunday morning.
Following her viewing in the Capitol, a memorial service was planned for Monday at St. Paul AME Church in Washington.
From Monday night until Wednesday morning, Parks will lie in repose at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit. Her funeral will be Wednesday at Greater Grace Temple Church in Detroit.
All of these events will be opportunities to bear witness.
Update [2005-10-28 15:41:56 by blksista]: The House did approve, by voice vote, the lying in state of Mrs. Rosa Parks in the Capitol Rotunda.
Update [2005-10-28 20:2:37 by blksista]: The singer Aretha Franklin will sing at her funeral at the Greater Grace Temple Church in Detroit on Wednesday. Franklin also sang at Martin Luther King, Jr.’s funeral in 1968.
FANTASTIC NEWS!!!
Recommended 10,000 times over.
The Senate passed a resolution in favor of honoring Mrs. Parks by allowing her body to lie in state in the Rotunda of the Capitol in Washington. Congressman Conyers says that he has the votes for this to pass in the House, including co-sponsorship by Dennis Hastert and Nancy Pelosi, among others. Surely this will pass the House.
After Washington, she will be returned to Detroit, for final services here.
If you are near Detroit, I strongly recommend coming to honor her while she lies in state here in the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History from 9pm Monday Oct. 31 to 5pm Wednesday, Nov. 2. It is a beautiful and fit setting for her, a good final “bookend” to compliment being honored by lying in state in the Capitol of the country.
We need people to stand up in front of her honorary tribute now, with signs: Stop the voter disenfranchisement of minorities and of people living in the cities.
This would be the greatest tribute we can give Rosa Parks today.
SIGNS —
— Our names have been scratched from voter lists
— 2005 – Georgia enacted a $20 poll tax.
— End voting machine apartheid.
More suggestions ??
It took an activist Supreme Court one year after Rosa Parks’ arrest before it ended the legal battles and struck down Montgomery’s racist bus-seating laws.
It’s at a diary at dailykos, I will cross-post it here in awhile.
So here’s a sign to carry:
Parks launched a court case. Activist
Supreme Court ended separate bus seats, 1956.
Probably overwhelming, but probably done on voice vote.
The House still needs to hear from folks, but this will happen and the vote will be overwhelming.
They ain’t but so stupid–most of ’em probably never gave a damn a/b Mrs. Parks, but they’ll have to be content to smile for the cameras and mutter under their breath ‘cuz they know they’re only going to pick a fight they won’t win. As absolutely deserving as Mrs. Parks is of this honor, it’s also a no-brainer of a vote, so when repubs talk about how much they love Black people in time for Black History Month, they can point to it.
S. Con. Res. 61 (Use of Rotunda for Rosa Parks). Agreed to by voice vote.
It was introduced by Reid and Cat Killer…er, Frist.
…when repubs talk about how much they love Black people in time for Black History Month, they can point to it.
You’re dead right, AP … but isn’t it tremendously satisfying that they feel forced to pay respect, deeply against their inclinations?
It’s just like when our politicians in Canada turn out for the Gay Pride parade. I know some of them hate us, but the political climate here demands that they treat us with respect — at least when it doesn’t really cost them anything.
This deeply deserved honour to Miss Rosa has the same bittersweet taste to me as did Major League Baseball honouring the 50th anniversary of Jackie Robinson becoming the first black major league player. It’s hard to feel unambiguously positive about such symbolic gestures, when the substance is still so lacking.
I must pay my respects. I will definitely be there.
People are so quick to call her Ms. Rosa Parks or Mrs. Rosa Parks.
Rosa Parks was a married, mature woman, and later a widow.
She wasn’t a miss for some time.
Her husband, Raymond Parks, was no stiff either. Says Wikipedia:
I wish there were many other men today who could see their woman getting an education as a plus, rather than as threatening or emasculating him.
I said this:
“People are so quick to call her Ms. Rosa Parks or Mrs. Rosa Parks.”
I meant, Miss Rosa Parks.
If anything, in her memory, she should be thought of as Mrs. Rosa Parks, or in fact, Mrs. Rosa Lee Parks, or Mrs. Rosa Louise McCauley Parks.
Mrs. Parks also suffered from progressive dementia in the last three years of her life.
I think I called her “Ms.” somewhere, but that’s more out of habit (I call myself Ms. and I’m married) and caught myself.
It’s generational but still huge. I happen to think that if I was “Ms.” b/4 marrying I can still be “Ms.” after.
Different ballgame for Mrs. Parks, my Mom, and women I consider my Mom’s peers. If I introduce her, she is “Mrs. AP.” Period. You do not address her by her first name unless she invites you to do so. Same with my Dad and his peers–he is addressed as “Mr. AP.” I even address my letters to my parents as “Mr. & Mrs.” as I consider it a sign of respect.
One of the daily humiliations of segregated life as you know were the countless times African-Americans were referred to by their first name only, when whites were addressed as Mr. so-and-so and Mrs. so-and-so.
So to just address her as “Rosa Parks”–though a brand name in history at this point–well, for me, it was always slightly disrespectful. Not casting aspersions at all, but knowing the history behind this, and you can understand why.
marital status or ethnicity. This is as it has been explained to me, and observed, in the US south, that a lady who is the object of great respect, especially an elder lady, is referred to, and addressed as “Miss (First Name).”
It means that the lady holds a position of such high esteem that the name her mother gave her outranks the surname of any man, whether her father or her husband.
This is why I refer to her as Miss Rosa. 🙂
Well, I won’t presume to speak for all of the South. But in the part of the South that I grew up in, this use of Miss was reserved for 1. Women of a certain age who were widows (and in fact, it was pronounced very often spoken Miz, as in “Miz Smith”, written Mrs. Smith).
and
2. Women of a certain age, who were never married, but who achieved a honorable position in the community, e.g. Miz Braswell, my third grade teacher, who was a lady for formidable presence in my small Southern town. One did not ask if she was married or not.
But in the case of Mrs. Parks, her husband was no in-the-background person. He was a presence here in Detroit with her. She has always been referred to as Mrs. Parks locally – although as in the Southern town where I grew up, that title is often pronounced “Miz”, but spelled Mrs.
I don’t know if the same local traditions are followed outside of the Mississippi/Tennessee/Arkansas/Missouri/Kentucky towns from which my parents and grandparents came.
on this theme. (We’re white.)
He and his first wife, Betty, moved from Kansas to small-town Arkansas in the early 1950s, where he taught college and she worked a series of odd jobs between having babies #4 and 5.
One of her first jobs there was working as a clerk in a department store.
Apparently, she helped an African-American customer with a sale and finished the encounter by saying, “Thank you, Mrs. Jones.”
Betty’s co-workers tried to shame her, by exclaiming, “You called her MRS.!” Betty replied in feigned innocence, “Well, she’s married, isn’t she?”
By all accounts, she was a woman who just LOVED sticking it to The Man. Heck of a personality for a preacher’s wife. Hmmm, maybe that’s why Dad ended up a professor…
It’s sort the of southern equivalent of Don & Dona.
I will still tell children I am “Miss AP”–a sign of respect, but not as formal as “Ms. last name.” I rather like it.
And there are older folks that I will Miss and Mr. first name to this day.
There’s a memorial service scheduled for Monday AM downtown at Metropolitan AME Church, 1518 M St. NW
Viewing at the Capitol:
West Entrance
6:30pm – midnight Sunday
7:00am – 10am Monday
Service, Metropolitan AME Church: 1:00 pm Monday.
And very noble of Miss Rosa’s family to allow it.
And well said. :<)
It’s about time a true hero gets the recognition that she deserves and will be honored in this way-finally Congress does something right.
Bravo! The honor she so deeply deserves.
Highly recommend this diary!
RIP Rosa Parks.