October 25, 2005
Private: Civil Rights Giant Rosa Parks Dies at 92
Rosa Parks, the Montgomery, Ala. seamstress who refused to give up her seat and move to the back of the bus, has died at the age of 92. Parks' act of defiance is credited with sparking a generation of activists, including a young Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and earning her the title "mother of the civil rights movement."
Speaking in 1992, Mrs. Parks said history too often maintains "that my feet were hurting and I didn't know why I refused to stand up when they told me. But the real reason of my not standing up was I felt that I had a right to be treated as any other passenger. We had endured that kind of treatment for too long."
Said U.S. Rep John Conyers (D-MI), in whose office Mrs. Parks worked for more than 20 years, "everybody wanted to explain Rosa Parks and wanted to teach Rosa Parks, but Rosa Parks wasn't very interested in that. "She wanted them to understand the government and to understand their rights and the Constitution that people are still trying to perfect today."