A great honor was bestowed on a woman who refused to give up her seat on a bus. A statue has been erected in our Capital in Washington D.C. to honor Rosa Parks who was a icon in the Civil Rights movement.
She now rests beside war heros and presidents. She was the spark that did light the way in the civil rights movements. Now for that I say it is about time.
Here was a woman whose simple act of defiance help change a segregated America. Rosa Parks lived in a time where blacks were subjected to harsh Jim Crow laws, where there was segregation in restaurants, hotels, and buses.
Her non-violent action sparked a revolution that led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. She defied the law of her day over 50 years ago on Dec. 1, 1955, when she refused to give up her seat to a white man while riding a bus in Montgomery, Al.
What she did took a tremendous amount of courage and conviction, though she said in later years she did not plan to do so but enough was enough.
I guess she did not know that she would be making such a difference in the lives of her fellow Americans. She therefore stood up against what she believed was wrong and by doing so changed a generation and moved the civil rights movement closer to equality. Now finally our nation honors a great American.
Frederick R. Bedell Jr.
Glen Oaks Village
