Congress Votes To Honor Rosa Parks With Gold Medal

Jet, May 10, 1999

Rosa Parks, who stoked the Civil Rights Movement by refusing to give up her seat to a White man on a segregated bus, will receive the Congressional Gold Medal under legislation sent to the White House.

The House voted 424-1 to award the 86-year-old Alabama native Congress' most prestigious civilian honor. Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) was the only lawmaker to vote against the bill. The Senate passed the measure 86-0. President Clinton is expected to sign it.

Parks' arrest on a December day in 1955 set off a lengthy bus boycott by Blacks that lasted until the Supreme Court declared Montgomery's bus segregation law unconstitutional, and it was changed. The boycott was led by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., a local minister at the time.

Republicans and Democrats lauded her as an American heroine.

"By supporting the commemoration of Mrs. Parks' accomplishments with a Gold Medal of Honor, we not only honor her past achievements, but we also celebrate our present gratitude," said Rep. J.C. Watts, Jr. (R-OK).

"One brave act of a humble seamstress triggered an avalanche of change which helped our country fulfill its commitment to equal rights for all Americans," said House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt (D-MO).

Democratic Rep. John Lewis of Georgia said that "one, simple, defining act" by Parks began a nonviolent revolution in the South that led to the end of segregation. "Rosa Parks has taught me and an entire generation the power that one individual can have in standing up for what is right and for what is just," added Lewis, a civil rights veteran who was beaten during protest marches in the 1960s.

Parks moved to Detroit in 1957 after she lost her sewing job, couldn't find work and her family was harassed and threatened. She joined the staff of Democratic Rep. John Conyers of Michigan in 1965 and worked there until she retired in 1988.

She now travels the country lecturing on civil rights.