SHE SAID ‘NO’
November 2005

Tired after long days worked
She took the load of her feet

He came and demanded
I am tired, I want to sit.

What about ‘first come first served?’
May be, if you are white

Bus driver insisted, she gets up
White man needs to sit down

She said ‘NO’, walked out
Millions followed her for 13 months

A 26 year preacher joined
For a long walk to Equality

A seamstress of clothes said ‘NO!’
And the world had to listen up

Long journey began with a simple ‘NO!’
No to injustice can be very powerful

A No to injustice and inequality
Proved to be yes for democracy

Many followed her footsteps
Martin Luther King came from behind

Came from behind
But, stood out front!

Slavery and discrimination
Did not go unchallenged.

Some progress was made
But not much changed

At 92, a nation mourned
First woman in capitol Rotunda

In death, she flagged.
Not just racism, but sexism too.

Ms Rosa Parks

She was born Rosa Louise McCauley in Tuskegee, Alabama, on February 4, 1913. Parks' father, James McCauley, was a carpenter, and her mother, Leona Edwards McCauley, a teacher. Her marriage to Raymond Parks lasted from 1932 until his death in 1977.

Parks' moment in history began in December 1955 when she refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama. Her arrest triggered a 381-day boycott of the bus system by blacks that was organized by a 26-year-old Baptist minister, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. At the time of her arrest, Parks was 42 and on her way home from work as a seamstress.

She added, "I only knew that, as I was being arrested, that it was the very last time that I would ever ride in humiliation of this kind." Four days later, Parks was convicted of disorderly conduct and fined $14.

The boycott ended on November 13, 1956, after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that Montgomery's segregated bus service was unconstitutional. The boycott led to a court ruling desegregating public transportation in Montgomery, but it wasn't until the 1964 Civil Rights Act that all public accommodations nationwide were desegregated. Facing regular threats and having lost her department store job because of her activism, Parks moved from Alabama to Detroit in 1957. She later joined the staff of U.S. Rep. John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat.

Parks' act of defiance came one year after the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision that led to the end of racial segregation in public schools.

U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, a Democrat, told CNN Monday he watched the 1955-56 Montgomery drama unfold as a teenager and it inspired him to get active in the civil rights movement.

All I was doing was trying to get home from work. -- Rosa Parks to NBC, 1985

She has been called "mother of the new civil rights movement", "apostle of non-violence", "eloquent voice for civil rights" and ‘a lady with great courage."

"As long as there is unemployment, war, crime and all things that go to the infliction of man's inhumanity to man, regardless -- there is much to be done, and people need to work together," she once said.

Even into her 80s, she was active on the lecture circuit, speaking at civil rights groups and accepting awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1999. "This medal is encouragement for all of us to continue until all have rights," she said at the June 1999 ceremony for the latter medal.

Parks was the subject of the documentary "Mighty Times: The Legacy of Rosa Parks," which received a 2002 Oscar nomination for best documentary short.

U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, a Democrat, told CNN Monday he watched the 1955-56 Montgomery drama unfold as a teenager and it inspired him to get active in the civil rights movement.

"It was so unbelievable that this woman -- this one woman -- had the courage to take a seat and refuse to get up and give it up to a white gentleman. By sitting down, she was standing up for all Americans," he said.

In April, Parks and rap duo OutKast settled a lawsuit over the use of her name on a CD released in 1998. The groups will work with the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute to promote Parks' legacy.