Rosa Parks

Farewell My Lady

Her dignity will wait here among the heroes, and the applause given to the legendary faces.

"If We Dream"

A Song Dedicated To
Rosa Parks

Song Lyrics

"If We Dream"
by
Forest Hairston

Rosa Louise Parks
Her Ride To Freedom
by
Forest Hairston

Her dignity and self-esteem didn't begin on that December day in 1955, Rosa Louise Parks was born with all that she was on that fateful moment in Montgomery, Alabama. But there in the shadow of Black History, Rosa Parks was on a one way journey . . . her ride to freedom. She made the bells of freedom ring across the entire world from the tallest steeple. She held onto her pride, and refused to relinquish her dignity to a White man on a bus ride in Alabama. Here now, this lady Rosa Parks needs no introduction. We know who she is. Her name magnifies a face of color and the pertinacious voices that demand respect and equality. And so, at now in Montgomery, Alabama, her name belongs to the Rosa Parks Boulevard, that run closely near the Rosa Parks Avenue. Her face of color belongs to the story of African American History. We yet honor this lady as we yet applaud her dignity.

A classy Southern girl who wore a wide smile, she was born Rosa Louise McCauley in Tuskegee, Alabama, on February 4, in the old-fashioned year of 1913. And she lived her life quietly old-fashioned, but with a seething attitude toward racism. And proudly Rosa became involved as a civil rights activist. During the period between 1943 and 1956, Rosa joined and served as secretary for the Montgomery branch of NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). In her memoirs, Rosa stated that in 1924, she enrolled at the private Montgomery Industrial School for Girls. There at "Miss White's School," where all the students were children of color and with all the teachers being Northern White women, she learned best that she was a Black person of proud dignity and self-respect. And from that time forth, Rosa never once denounced herself as a person of inferiority, simply because she was Black. She married Raymond Parks, a barber, in December 1932. As it was, Parks was a fervent activist, in fact, he'd long been an active leader of the famed NAACP organization.

Martin And Rosa

Black History

Black Legacy

Still, for Rosa, it was a long walk across the valley with Martin Luther King, her husband and the brave Black women and men who marched along with the taut stoic faces. It was a long walk across the field that was yet littered with echo of the old slaves, and the deafening blare of the Civil War bugle. It was a long walk for Rosa Louise Parks through the old South and the old staid racism. Even so, her stance for civil rights on that December day in Montgomery was not immediately met with glowing jubilance. Rather, she was arrested, jailed and convicted of violating Alabama's segregation laws.

Rosa Parks went on to endure the harsh and frightening harassment throughout her Montgomery ordeal. And from the zealot racism that followed her ride to freedom, Rosa, her husband and her entire family suffered nearly unbearable hardship. But in the sunlight defining Rosa Parks' courageous ride to freedom, a 1956 district court ruled that bus segregation in the South, or otherwise in this land of America was unconstitutional. And there in November 1956, long after the Civil War and long after the Jim Crow laws had defied our Black slavish emancipation, the United States Supreme Court upheld the judicious decision handed down by the lower court. One month later the desegregation of Montgomery buses began. Rosa Louise Parks had taken her ride to freedom somewhere in a Southern place. Her dignity will wait here among the heroes, and the applause given to the Legendary Faces.