Tuesday, October 25, 2005

The Detroit News Rosa Parks joins the Sisters of St. Joseph during a demonstration in Detroit for voting rights for blacks in Alabama in March 1965.

Parks was a source of Detroit pride

For almost 50 years, she called city home

By Oralandar Brand-Williams / The Detroit News

Associated Press Vice President Walter Mondale, right, and U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Damon Keith present the NAACP Spingarn Medal for outstanding achievement by a black American to Rosa Parks in 1979. Comment on this story Send this story to a friend Get Home Delivery

DETROIT -- Her name graces one of the main streets in Detroit.

As in many cities across the country, there is a Rosa Parks Boulevard and a Rosa Parks public school.

Parks was the city's most famous citizen. She lived in Detroit longer than she did in Montgomery, Ala., the city that made her an international figure.

For their safety, Parks and her husband, Raymond, moved to Detroit in 1957, a few years after the turbulent bus boycott in Montgomery.

"I didn't stay in Montgomery long after the bus boycott ended," wrote Parks in her 1992 autobiography, "My Story." "My brother made arrangements for us to move. We did suffer some harassment. We thought life would be better for us in Detroit."

With $800 in donations from friends and well-wishers, Raymond and Rosa Parks arrived in Detroit and moved into an apartment on Euclid Avenue on the city's west side with her brother, Sylvester. Rosa's mother, Leona McCauley, also moved in.

Parks continued to make appearances across the country, meeting crowds and speaking on behalf of the NAACP. She briefly took a job at Hampton Institute in Virginia, a black college, as a hostess of the school's guest house for students. She eventually moved back to Detroit to be with her husband and her mother.

In 1959, Parks got a job as a seamstress at the Stockton Sewing Company, a small clothing factory in downtown Detroit. She took a bus to get to the crammed storefront business, where she earned 75 cents for each piece of clothing she completed. She worked at Stockton until 1964.

During her years at Stockton, she forged a friendship with co-worker Elaine Eason Steele, a 16-year-old Cass Tech High school student. Years later, Steele would become Parks' caretaker and spokeswoman.

Many say Steele is the daughter Parks never had.

"She was so sweet and nice and showed me how to use the power-industrial Singer machine, how to place the garment under the needle just right," Steele told author Douglas Brinkley, who wrote the 2000 biography "Rosa Parks."

While crisscrossing the country speaking about the civil rights movement, Parks met a black lawyer in 1964 who worked as a legislative assistant to U.S. Rep. John Dingell, D-Dearborn.

That lawyer, who was running for a seat in Congress himself, was John Conyers, D-Detroit. Parks went to work for the newly elected lawmaker in 1965 as a receptionist and office assistant, retiring in 1988 at the age of 75.

She became one of the city's most revered residents.

It was not unusual for awestruck Metro Detroiters to see Parks at a neighborhood drugstore. Known for her humble and unassuming nature, Parks was always embarrassed by her celebrity status.

That Parks made Detroit her home was a source of local pride.

"People always wanted to know where she lived when they visited me," said Carol Mann of Oak Park. "She was truly a great person. She will always be known for her greatness."

"Because she is so great, you always thought maybe (she would live in) New York or Washington, D.C., but little old Detroit?" said Lilly Graham of Rochester Hills. "I always took pride in knowing that she chose Detroit as her second home."

Judge Damon Keith of the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals said it's only fitting that Metro Detroiters honor "Mother Parks," who by her stand on the bus opened many doors directly or indirectly for black Americans.

"People recognize how special she is," Keith said. "I wouldn't be where I am if it wasn't for Rosa Parks."

In August 1994, Detroit's "most famous citizen" became a victim.

Then 81, Parks was attacked in her west-side home and robbed of $53 by a young man looking for money to buy drugs.

The man, who later was arrested and convicted, hit Parks when she didn't give him enough money, police said. Parks suffered abrasions to her face and chest.

Keith took the initiative to find Parks a new home after the attack.

"I called (business leaders) Max Fisher and Al Taubman and told them I wanted to get her in the Riverfront Apartments," Keith recalled. "They told me to take her over there right away."

Parks expressed no bitterness or anger toward her assailant. Said a family member: "That's not who Rosa is."

Jim Netter, chairman of the legal redress committee for the Western Wayne County chapter of the NAACP, would like to see a memorial built in honor of Parks.

"We should erect a big statue of her," Netter said.

"She should also have her own holiday."

The Detroit News Rosa Parks receives an honorary degree from the University of Michigan-Dearborn in 1991. She has received several honorary degrees and countless honors and awards.