montgomery department. colored people are employed at this store as supporters, and the very or operators, truck drivers, i work in the tailor shop doing men s clothing alterations as a helper of the this thing called segregation here is complete and solid pattern, a way of life. to make money on the side, she is tailoring for one of montgomery s few white civil rights activists families. parks and virginia began their friendship. she wanted to be a part of our efforts to end segregation, even though that meant being ostracized and made to suffer. she is affiliated with highlander folk school. the school was a new beginning, a link between the towns and the mountains. miles horton was its founder.
black power, black liberation movement of that period. the first time i met rosa parks was in 1967 at the peoples trial that was taking place. this entire church was packed. all of us were there to see and witness her display of what we called the of justice. the conclusion was that they were done. they were guilty of murder in the first degree. i do not think people understand how well trained mrs. parks was, i do not think they understand what a good organizer she was. i do not think they understand how long she had been in the struggle and i don t think they understood how radical her understanding of what the kind of change we need is. and it is a part of her magic, really, that on the one hand she can cultivate this
part of the move to get the voting rights act of 1965 passed in the first place. and there they are, in fact, enhancing voter suppression on that same day. it erased her whole political history from the 1930s really in till the eve of her death. it erased the fact that she was part of a movement that was considered a threat to the united states. and so, a statue was the way that we are going to remember the civil rights movement, and she gets trapped in this image of this long ago problem that we had in this country, and in many ways the statute produced and trapped what her legacy actually asks of us. she was very mindful of the
three young men that were killed at the al-jubeir motel. there was a blackout on the news about the incident. it was obvious that not thing was happening, no justice. young militants decide to organize a people tribunal to bring the facts of the case to the community and ask rosa parks to serve on the jury. i was one of the young radicals. i said, she is not going to go for this. i asked her and she said certainly, and i m glad that you asked. we had the tribunal here at the church of the black madonna. jesus was concerned about freedom, about people coming together, about the unity of a black people fighting against oppression of a white gentile nation. the shrine of the black madonna was part of the whole
the up sat down, and witnessed the arrest, and humiliation, and the court trials, and finds paid. people that just sat down in an empty seat. something had to be done. the fight to desegregate public transportation was part of a larger fight for citizenship rights. nixon is also working to protect black people who are victims of white violence. in particular, black women that have been raped and sexually assaulted. she felt strongly that the same mindset that tolerates sexual violence against black women is the same mindset that will refuse to hold people accountable as they engage in mob lynchings, and racial terror. is it worthwhile to reveal the intimacies of the past? or the people be sympathetic or disillusioned by the facts of my life?