Thursday, November 3, 2005

Clarence Tabb Jr. / The Detroit News "She denied herself comfort," said Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan during the funeral.; U.S. Rep. John Conyers of Detroit recalled the "Mother Teresa-like aura" Parks brought to his office.

Saluting a freedom fighter

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President Bill Clinton

"Rosa parks ignited the most significant social movement in modern American history to finish the work that spawned the Civil War and redeem the promise of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments. For 50 more years, she moved beyond the bus, continuing her work on that promise.

 

"When I first met Rosa Parks, I was reminded of what Abraham Lincoln said when he was introduced to Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." He said, 'So this is the little lady who started the Great War.' This time Rosa's war was fought by Martin Luther King's rules: civil disobedience, peaceful resistance.

 

"Now that our friend Rosa Parks has gone on to her just reward, now that she has gone home and left us behind, let us never forget that in that simple act and a lifetime of grace and dignity, she showed us every single day what it means to be free." 

 

Longtime friend Johnnie Carr

"I think I have the authority to say what I am about to say. Other than family members of Rosa Parks, I may be the only person who has known her as long as I had. It is a privilege for me to speak about Rosa Parks, my schoolmate, ... because what I have always said about her was this: As many things that have been started in many places by many people, but nothing has ever been started like the fire that Rosa Parks started when she struck the match that lit the fire that started civil rights in America. Rosa Parks has shown us what one little woman can really do. If Rosa Parks was looking down on us from the balconies of Glory, she would be saying to us, 'Don't stop. The work is not done.'"

 

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama

"When the history of this country is written, when a final accounting is done, it is this small quiet woman whose name will be remembered long after the names of senators and presidents have been forgotten. It is her name that will be recalled as having helped lay the foundation for a nation to live up to its creed."

 

The Rev. Jesse Jackson

"Somewhere between the law changing, she sat down to test the law. She was a freedom fighter. A seamstress? That's irrelevant. She didn't get locked up for sewing. She could have been a housemaid except this was 1955. She joined the NAACP in 1943, 12 years before that. She wasn't lucky. She was defiant."

 

"You're going back to the bigness in the sky. ... I want you to stop by and tell Dr. King howdy, howdy. ... I know you will get there because you have a prepaid ticket. Go up higher now and spread your wings and stop by and ... pull that bullet out of his back. Stop by. Say well done young brother! Stop by and tell him, your dying inspired me and I made America better."

 

The Rev. Al Sharpton

"Rosa Parks was not only the mother of the civil rights movement, she was the mother of this nation. You call George Washington the father of this nation, but when he became father, we weren't included in the nation. Women were not included in the nation. The first time we had a parent in this nation is when all of us were included, and Rosa Parks did that on December 1, 1955."

 

Minister Louis Farrakhan

"She denied herself comfort. After denying herself, she picked up a cross -- not a cross that you wear in your ear or wear around your neck ... but a cross that represents rejection ...being evil spoken of... being falsely accused and being brought before a court of law on unjust charges. That's a cross that she bore."

U.S. Rep. John Conyers

"The power you feel in this church is the power that she left when she walked on this earth and lived in Detroit for year after year. She worked in my office. ... This was a celebrity staffer if there ever was one. We got along well because she had that Mother Teresa-like aura about her that brought peace and harmony -- I never heard her in an argument or heard her raise her voice or use angry tones or negative words about anybody. She didn't have it in her."

 

The Rev. Charles Adams

Pastor of Hartford Memorial Baptist Church in Detroit, which had paid Parks' rent since 2003.

"She sat there so that we might sit in higher seats. And because she sat where she sat, we are now sitting in the halls of Congress, sitting on the Supreme Court, sitting as presidents and CEOs of global corporations, heads of Ivy League schools, pastors of mega churches, secretaries of state, sitting at the table where cosmic decisions are made. Because she sat there, we are able to sit here."

 

The Rev. Bernice King

Martin Luther King's daughter

"Today we mourn the loss of the mother of the movement, a woman whose name will forever be etched in the hearts of freedom-loving people everywhere: Mrs. Rosa L. Parks. And though we mourn the loss of this singular champion of racial justice, we also celebrate her homegoing as a woman of unwavering faith who served God and humanity with unconditional love and devotion."

 

U. S. Rep. John Dingell

"(Rosa Parks was) a quiet, gentle, effective, wonderful, strong, wise leader.

"This country has had two great seamstresses -- one was named Betsy Ross, who put together the flag which flies beautifully over parts of (our) country and is in all our hearts. Rosa Parks lent meaning to that flag by the leadership she gave. We will succeed in ending Jim Crow and discrimination in this country."

 

Wayne County Executive

Robert Ficano

"Parks was a legend. She was a person who inspired the best in us and she was living history.

"Rosa Parks was America's Mother Teresa -- she had an unassuming quality about her that made everyone she met feel special, honored, uplifted. By not giving up her seat, Rosa Parks challenged the conscience of America and the rest of the world. Like others, I marveled at her humbleness. When you were with Rosa Parks, you were aware she was a woman who stopped America in its tracks."

 

Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick

"This is about Mother Parks, not us. We believe it is not an accident that Ms. Rosa Parks ended up in Detroit. As the youngest person speaking here today, I stand here humbly as an extension of all those people as yet unborn in 1955. As Dr. King said, service is the rent we pay for the space we occupy. I say to you, thank you Mother Parks for showing men what true courage really is."

 

Gov. Jennifer Granholm

"Rosa Parks was lain in honor in our nation's capital in the great rotunda that's reserved only for war heroes and presidents, but she was not a president. She was, though, a war hero. She was a heroic warrior for equality, and my God, surely that is enough for a nation to celebrate.

"But she was also a warrior for the everyman and the everywoman. ... A warrior that was protected in this army by the piercing weapons of love and nonviolence more powerful than any army before and since. What has been written of Gandhi is certainly true for Rosa Parks. Her greatness lay in what everybody could do but doesn't."

 

U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton

"We all remember that moment on the bus, but let us think that that was not an isolated moment to be honored and put on a shelf in history books.

"We will dishonor her memory if we do not in our own ways have moments like that in our lives which add up to the continuing transformation of America on its journey to fulfill the promise that we made so long ago.

"One nation under God, where all men and women are created equal and where no person is left behind overlooked and disrespected any longer. "

 

Ford Motor Co. CEO

William Ford Jr.

"Detroit became a destination for those, who like Rosa Parks, believed the American Dream should be available to everyone. Years later, my family and the Henry Ford Museum had a chance to complete the circle by acquiring and restoring the bus on which by refusing to move, she moved the world. We will remember her as someone who had the courage not only point out injustice but to fight it. With dignity and determination, she made the world a better place."

 

Elaine Eason Steele

Parks' assistant

"This is indeed a celebration, (and) Mrs. Parks has enjoyed it. ... She loved, good preaching. She loved good political talk. So she is smiling, and I thank you so much. And she loved her family."

 

Veteran civil rights activist

Joseph Lowery

"We can't do justice to Rosa Parks letting your tribute end with ceremony. I call upon you today to just don't stop with this ceremony. You must move from ceremony to sacrament. Sacramental honor means that never again can you let an election pass without getting up and casting your vote."