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Ms. MILLENDER-McDONALD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) so much for yielding, and I am absolutely privileged to stand here today on the shoulders of a woman who stood so proud, though her frame was so small. One act, infused with courage, changed this world.
Her act was a spark that ignited a movement that altered the course of history for America. She sat down in order for America to stand up and look at itself, look at herself, and to see the atrocities that they were doing on a group of people, we African Americans.
I am so privileged to have had the opportunity to meet this great woman. She came to California; and while she came to California, she and I both hailed from Alabama. Yes, she was a native Alabaman and so am I.
Rosa Parks, a seamstress who refused to get up from her seat to give to it a white man, that is the type of courage that she displayed; and yet she did not want anyone to showcase her. In California, when we showcased her in the State legislature, she said, I do not want all of this. I said to her, I am sorry, you have all of this, because you have made this country a better country because of one act that you did.
All Americans should be standing up at this point, praising Rosa Parks for what she did, not only for a group of people but for this country. She raised the consciousness of this country and brought it to its knees in terms of segregation.
I am looking at the Washington Post Style, and they say: ``Appreciation. The Thread That Unraveled Segregation.'' Indeed, she did. What a mighty force she was, a woman who used threads to make a living, and yet when she was about to make a dress for one of her persons, a person who was really not of her ilk, they told her, you have made this wedding dress so beautifully you should come to the wedding. She says, well, I would like to come to the wedding. But then officials at St. John's Episcopal Church told Lucy, the young woman for whom she was making the wedding dress, that if Rosa Parks was to attend this wedding, she would have to wear a uniform like a servant or sit in the balcony. She refused to do that. She was a woman of such great spirit, great soul.
I know the time is passing, but I just want to say to my dear sister, she has made us all proud. My daughters met her. I am sorry my granddaughters Ayanna, Ramia, and Blair did not meet her, nor my grandson Myles; but they will know her because their grandmother will tell them how she stood tall in spite of her small frame.
So thank you, Rosa Parks, for the distinction of becoming the mother of a civil rights movement and having the courage to act on behalf of all man- and womankind. |
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