Recognizing the 50th anniversary of Rosa Louise Parks' refusal to give up her seat on the bus and the subsequent desegregation of American society.

Mr. Speaker, first let me thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) for his leadership in organizing this tribute to a great leader, Mrs. Rosa Parks. My heart goes out to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) in his personal loss. He is truly a remarkable human being, and I know that his memories and the love Mrs. Parks had for the gentleman will sustain him during this very difficult time.

My deepest condolences and prayers are with Mrs. Parks's family and her friends tonight as we lift her up, lift up her great spirit on this House floor on this very somber occasion.

Mrs. Parks passing away on Monday evening jolted the world. A giant has gone home. This has been a very difficult year full of losses. Rosa Parks joins other great African American heroes who recently passed away: Shirley Chisholm, Judge Constance Baker Motley, and C. Dolores Tucker, to name a few, all who faced opposition, stood their ground and sacrificed so much for freedom and for justice.

Mrs. Parks's simple nonviolent act 50 years ago to refuse to give up her seat on a bus changed the course of America. The mother of the modern civil rights movement, Mrs. Parks shattered the walls of legal segregation and opened the doors of opportunities for many, including myself. And, yes, I remember those days of the colored only faucets and not being able to go to the theaters and on the train only being able to ride in one car and not being able to attend public schools. I remember those days very vividly.

Let me say this act of defiance and dissent by Mrs. Parks, it toppled Jim Crow. Her life was recognized just this past September when the House, led by the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), and I must remind us, we unanimously passed a resolution in recognition of her legacy, H. Con. Res. 208.

A recipient of this Nation's highest honors, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1999, Rosa Parks stood tall by sitting down. She quietly and peacefully challenged the status quo. She took on, though, the entire government, and she took down its shameful system of segregation.

Personally I was so inspired by Mrs. Parks in some of the most difficult moments in my career. In fact, just 2 years ago Mrs. Parks wrote me a personal reminder, and I read that letter again last night. And in her letter to me she said, Never think that you are alone when you stand for right, because God is with you. I cannot even explain what that meant and means to me.

Rosa Parks's quiet strength, as her 1994 book is titled, shattered the walls of legal segregation. And I had the privilege to be with her on many occasions in Los Angeles and in Oakland and in Sacramento, California, and I was in awe of this great woman, and I could not help but notice her love for children and her commitment to education.

She was a humble woman, yet a giant of a human being who loved her country and insisted that it live up to its creed of liberty and justice for all. Three thousand miles away and 50 years later, my constituents in the East Bay of California still honor Mrs. Parks's legacy. Students enrolled at the Rosa Parks Environmental Science Magnet School in Berkeley are reminded every day of her example by the painting of Mrs. Parks in the front seat of a bus that hangs above the door to the campus's main office. Their school anthem thanks Mrs. Parks for her role in bringing segregation to its knees.

She also inspired my constituents to create the Martin Luther King, Jr., Freedom Center, on which I serve as a founding board member. The MLK Freedom Center teaches social justice, equality and nonviolence in our community, especially with its outreach efforts to our youth. In fact, the young people from the center participated in the 40th anniversary of the historic civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, where they visited the bus stop where Rosa Parks protested and dared not to get up, and also the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church where Dr. King preached.

It is an important historical reminder of where we have been, just what Rosa Parks really did for us and for the country. It is a reminder of how far we have come, but also it reminds us of how far we have to go, as we have been recently reminded by Hurricane Katrina.

Daphne Muse, the director of the Women's Leadership Institute at my alma mater, Mills College in Oakland, wrote an essay entitled ``Our Week With Rosa Parks--Her Presence is a Gift that Remains Part of our Hearts and Home.'' And in this essay she wrote about Mrs. Parks's visit to Oakland, California, and she said, In the course of preparing for Mrs. Parks's visit, she noted to members of the committee that hotels just did not suit her spirit, and she preferred the tradition extended through southern hospitality of putting people up in your home. She then asked if I would mind if she could be our guest during her week- long stay in Oakland. She made only one request of me, and that is that we keep her presence a secret. She and her longtime friend Elaine Steele were eager to be in a place where they could relax, listen to music, and eat great food without being disturbed.

Daphne Muse goes on to say, Although we had never even met, when Rosa Parks walked through our front door, she instantly became family.

Mr. Speaker, tonight as we remember this dignified, courageous and remarkable woman, let us honor her life and her legacy by standing up for what is right, for embracing peace and nonviolence as an effective tool in our work as public servants. And let us keep her family and her friends in our prayers and in our hearts and in our souls.

Thank you, Rosa Parks. May you finally now rest in peace.

Mr. Speaker, the full text of that essay is as follows:

Our Week With Rosa Parks: Her Presence Is a Gift That Remains Part of

Our Heart and Home

(By Daphne Muse)

Everyday, history is made by people whose names remain

unknown as well as those who become eternal icons. In May of

1980, a woman who forever changed our country spent a week in

our home. The East Bay Area Friends of Highlander Research

and Education Center joined with founder Myles Horton to

honor two of the Civil Rights Movements most courageous

pioneers: Rosa Parks and Septima Clark. Clark broke ground as

a pioneering force in citizenship training and voter

education. The two women met at Highlander in 1955, a place

where my own mother-in-law Margaret Landes was trained during

the 1930s.

Founded in 1932, Highlander is a civil rights training

school located on a 104-acre farm atop Bays Mountain, near

New Market, Tennessee. Over the course of its history,

Highlander has played important roles in many major political

movements, including the Southern labor movements of the

1930s, the Civil Rights Movement of the 1940s-60s, and the

Appalachian people's movements of the 1970s-80s. Through

books in our home library, her teachers and my own work as a

writer, Anyania knew about the role Ms. Parks played in

changing the course of history.

Like millions of other African Americans, Mrs. Parks was

tired of the racism, segregation and Jim Crow laws of the

times. Through her commitment to freedom and training at

Highlander Research and Education Center, her refusal to move

to the back of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama on December 1,

1955, spawned a movement. Parks took a seat in the section of

a Montgomery city bus designated for whites. She was

arrested, tried and fined for violating a city ordinance.

Mrs. Parks, a seamstress, often had run-ins with bus drivers

and had been evicted from buses. Getting on the front of the

bus to pay her fare and then getting off going to the back

door was so humiliating. There were times the driver simply

would shut the door and drive off. Her very conscious

decision turned into an economically crippling, politically

dynamic boycott and ended legal segregation in America. A

three hundred and eighty two day bus boycott followed her

morally correct and courageous act.

In the course of preparing for Ms. Parks' visit, she noted

to members of the committee that hotels just didn't suit her

spirit and she preferred the tradition extended through

southern hospitality of putting people up in your home. She

then asked if I would mind if she could be our guest during

her week long stay in Oakland. She made only one request of

us: that we keep her presence a secret. She and her long time

friend Elaine Steele were eager to be in a place where

they could relax, listen to music and eat great food

without being disturbed. The disturbed part was my

greatest concern for between the bullet blasting drug wars

and the press, I was concerned about how to maintain that

part of the agreement.

Our modest home in the Fruitvale community of Oakland,

California had served as a cultural center and refuge to many

writers, filmmakers, artists and activists including S1weet

Honey in the Rock, novelist Alice Walker and poet Gwendolyn

Brooks. Although we'd never even met, when Rosa Parks walked

through our front door, she instantly became family. She and

Anyania melted into one another's arms like a grandmother

seeing her grandchild for the first time. One morning as

Anyania was about to take off for school, the button on her

dress popped off. It was a jumper filled with multicultural

images of ,I children my mother had made Anya. Ms. Parks

asked if I had a sewing box, II threaded the needle and sewed

the button back on. My spirit spilled over and I just burst

into tears.

Anyania was so good at keeping the secret. I, on the other

hand, wanted to blurt out to my family, friends and students

at Mills College ``Guess who's sleeping in my bed? A few

months ago, a former neighbor came by to pay a visit and

started set searching the scores of photographs hanging on

the walls in our living room. She stopped, turned around and

blurted out, ''No that isn't.'' I instantly knew the

photograph to which she was referring. Along with pictures of

Fannie Lou Hamer, Eleanor Holmes Norton and Jim Forman hangs

a very precious photograph of Rosa Parks surrounded by my

then seven-year-old daughter and her playmate Kai Beard.

Dottie was simply undone that in all the years she'd come

into our home, she like so many others simply thought the

woman sitting next to Anyania was her grandmother. A few

weeks after she returned to Detroit, Ms. Parks sent Anyania

an exquisite portrait of her painted by Paul Collins. That

portrait now hangs in Anya's home in Brentwood, California

where my grandchildren Maelia and Elijah live, read and play

everyday.

Rosa & Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development.

January 15, 2003.

Hon. Barbara Lee,

U.S. Congress,

Washington, DC.

Dear Congresswoman Lee: Never think you are alone when you

stand for right because GOD is with you. We are very proud of

you. It makes us feel good that you are a Congressional

Member.

Love, Peace and Prosperity,

Rosa Parks.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of this Special Order.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Alabama (Mr. Davis) whose district I had the pleasure of being in, and with him, only a few days ago.

Mr. Speaker, this is a sad moment for me. The truth of the matter is that we have known that Mrs. Rosa Louise Parks had been in poor health; that frequently we would ask, how is she doing this week? Is she any better? How are things going? And now that this moment has come 2 days ago, we still cannot accept this reality of this dear, powerful, gentle lady going to her reward after 92 years of being with us on this Earth.

She has been regarded as an ordinary person, as an example of what an ordinary person can do in our system. But I am not convinced that she is an ordinary person, because I have seen her at very close range. The fact of the matter is I believe she is an extremely extraordinary person because of these two qualities. First of all, she was a gentle lady. She was soft-spoken. She had never in the years I have known her ever raised her voice in anger. She did not debate anyone. She was a very mild-mannered person. She never sought the limelight. She never, ever issued a press release. She never sought awards or commendations. Yet she received more than most people do in this world that we live in.

So that was this one aspect of her, but there was another. There was inside her forged a set of principles of which two were very prominent in terms of my analysis here this evening. One, she was a very religious woman. She attended church with great regularity, but, more than that, she worked in the church. She helped out. She was there during the week. And combined with her religious convictions was this fierce antipathy to segregation. And I do not know how many people we can think of that combine these two kinds of characteristics, soft spoken and humble, and yet fiercely prepared, in a nonviolent way, to fight segregation.

So she came to this activity not as something that she just happened to get into or that she moved one day, she did something different; she had always been an activist in Alabama. She was a member of the NAACP, she was always the first to sign the membership card, and it is hard to remember that this could be the case, but in the 1940s, being a member of the NAACP in the South, and publicly acknowledging it, was a very daring and courageous move in and of itself.

She subscribed to the theory of nonviolence. So when, on December 1, 1955, she decided that she would not give up her seat on a public bus in Montgomery, Alabama, some thought that was the first time that she had ever done it. But to the contrary, previously she had refused to give up her seat, but she was ordered off the bus. She had never been arrested. And so this time they told her, you will be arrested, you are going to be arrested.

And she said, I am not giving up my seat. You can do whatever you want. And so we marched into this great history.

Now, I wanted to point out that she was the one that brought Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., into the civil rights movement. Martin Luther King, Jr., was at that time 26 years old, and he was called in to come after she had been arrested; and it was decided that everyone was going to boycott the buses as a result.

And so it is ironic that she had this role in addition to restarting the civil rights movement in America. She brought in the person who would ultimately lead it at the same time.

I am sure Dr. King may not have been thinking about his future and his destiny, and I am sure that Mrs. Parks could not anticipate what this one move was going to mean. And so I am very happy to tell you that I had the opportunity to meet her, to know her before she came to Detroit, and what a blessing it was to find out that she ultimately with her husband left Montgomery.

Why? Because she wanted to go somewhere else? No. She was fired from her job. She was black-balled. She could not get employment. And she and her husband and family were receiving death threats regularly. So they decided to relocate with relatives that were in Detroit, and so it was my good fortune to be able to get to know her.

She joined in my campaign. I said, the first person I am going to ask to be on my congressional staff when I get elected would be Rosa Parks. And I asked her to join my staff. She did not ask me for a job. I asked her to please come and join me, and it was a great source of pleasure and delight that she was a minor celebrity.

People came to my office to see not the Congressman on a constituent basis, but merely to get a picture of Rosa Parks or get a signature or ask if they could talk with her, and she was as accommodating with them as she was with everybody else.

She was a confidante I was able to connect up. The biggest legislative challenge in my very first year was the passage, the consideration and passage of the Voter Rights Act of 1965. And here she was right in the middle of that, working with the likes of Ralph Abernathy and Andrew Young and Fred Shuttleworth, and of course Dr. Martin Luther King, and many other of the great names that were around that original group that started the civil rights movement, the modern civil rights movement as we know it.

She had a great passion for young people, and she and her husband formed the Raymond and Rosa Parks Foundation which still exists today and which she and her husband and staff trained young people, and then they went visiting the major civil rights sites throughout the South, so that they could get the flavor of what was going on, and what happened and when it transpired.

And so, ladies and gentlemen, I see in the firmament of the great trilogy of leaders of freedom and justice, Nelson Mandella, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rosa Louise Parks.

When Nelson Mandella came to Detroit and found out that Rosa Parks had come out to join him in welcoming him as he came out of 27 years of imprisonment, he began a chant for Rosa Parks, Rosa Parks. And here were these two great icons, both well aware of each other and their contributions. So it is with some pride that I have had the privilege of associating my congressional career with both Dr. King and Rosa Louise Parks.

And this Special Order will continue the discussion that has already begun to take place about all of the roles, the contributions, the feelings, the legacy of Rosa Parks; and that is how I think she will be remembered, as this gentle person with the determination of steel.

So it is with great pleasure that I yield now to the distinguished gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased now to recognize the distinguished gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Scott).

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to recognize the gentlewoman from Oakland, California (Ms. Lee).

What a beautiful remembrance of a great lady. I am sure the gentlewoman is one of the few people in Congress that have a written communication from Mrs. Parks. I congratulate the gentlewoman.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to recognize the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Watson).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from California for her kind remarks and remembrances of Rosa Parks; and now, Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt), the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, a veteran member of the North Carolina bar and member of the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt) for his eloquent statement.

Mr. Speaker, I am now pleased to yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Millender-McDonald), who has been a strong supporter of civil rights, affirmative action, and the Voter Rights Act.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Millender-McDonald) for those remembrances, and we had no idea that she and Rosa Parks had so much in common.

Mr. Speaker, that concludes our list of people that wanted to speak tonight. The celebrations of her life and legacy go on, though we will be observing memorial activities in Montgomery, Alabama; in the Nation's capital; and in Detroit, Michigan, as well. I want to thank you for the privilege of allowing me and other Members to come forward this evening for this round of tributes to the life and legacy of Rosa Louise Parks.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

(Mr. CONYERS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks, and include extraneous material.)

Mr. Speaker, this is a proud moment in our history, and I begin by commending the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, for the work he has done in helping me bring this concurrent resolution to the floor today.

Why is this historic? Because the impetus to reconnect with this struggle for racial justice in America began with this humble lady, a seamstress in Alabama, who on December 1, 1955, chose to no longer obey the ordinance that blacks sit in the back of the bus and if it was full, then they give up the bus to white passengers.

It is hard to conceive of the total segregation that this Nation was immersed in. On that day, she refused to obey a bus driver's order; and it began the chain of actions and organizations and commitments that led to a resurgence of the civil rights movement as we know it.

Her arrest sparked a boycott of the Montgomery city bus lines. It went on for over a year as more and more people of all backgrounds and colors and economic classes joined in. Finally this matter reached, in November of 1956, the Supreme Court of the United States. The Supreme Court of the United States affirmed that desegregation codes deny under the 14th amendment the equal protection of laws to African Americans.

This is a great moment because the present is tied to the past. The other body is in the process of determining who the next Chief Justice of that Supreme Court will be.

Hurricane Katrina has made us remember how deeply poverty and race have brought most of the hardship upon people of color in New Orleans and in Mississippi where the havoc is still being counted, 400 deaths now known; but the number is sure to go far, far beyond that.

Now a word about Rosa Parks herself because I happen to be connected with this, meeting her through my work with Dr. Martin Luther King as an attorney and then getting to know her when she left Montgomery and came to Detroit.

She was so modest. They said she got fired from her job a month after the boycott. Here is what she said in the book she wrote: ``A month after the boycott began, I lost my $25-a-week job when the Montgomery Fair department store closed its tailor shop. I was given no indication from the store that my boycott activities were the reason I lost my job. People always wanted to say it was because of my involvement in the boycott. I cannot say this is true. I do not like to form in my mind something I do not have any proof of.'' That exemplifies this incredible humbleness that marked everything that she did.

I said the first person I am going to bring into my congressional office staff is Rosa Parks, and she accepted. Never once have I ever heard her raise her voice in anger. Never once have I heard her speak negative or unkind remarks about anybody, this persona, this modest woman of incredible determination who, by the way, brought Martin Luther King into Montgomery to help lead the Montgomery bus boycott, which was the start of his career as a civil rights leader. Yet this humble woman, quiet, dignified, always pleasantly composed, was able to bring forward this and other countless acts of civil disobedience which resulted in us changing the way that America operates.

It was Rosa Parks that did all of this; and what I wanted to do was let Members know that she, by bringing Martin King into this matter, was able to begin a civil rights movement much, much larger than the boycott itself.

She then started the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self- Development, a nonprofit organization that sought to motivate youth. On this recognition of the 50th anniversary of that refusal to give up her seat, I am very proud that the Congress has chosen to join in with us by way of this concurrent resolution and remember this incredible point in American history.

I lift up the name of Ms. Elaine Steele, who has been with Rosa Parks for years and years as her assistant, as her counselor, as her dearest friend, and attorney Gregory J. Reed who has given her the legal background and support that she has needed from time to time.

This is a great day in the history of America that we remember. It is a great day in the Congress that we can remember that Martin King challenged his own country which he loved very much. But when he felt it was wrong, dissent was the highest form of patriotism that he could exemplify what this country stood for. And civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks, by displaying her defiant act of courage 50 years ago, has made this country more of what it ought to be than anyone else that I can think of.

So I join with my colleagues in celebrating the ideals of Ms. Parks and the civil rights movement.

Today we honor Rosa Parks and her decision to stand up to injustice 50 years ago. On December 1, 1955, Ms. Parks refused to obey a bus driver's order that she give up her bus seat in the black section to a white man because the white section was full.

It is the courage, dignity, and determination that Ms. Parks exemplified on this day that allows most historians to credit her with beginning the modern day civil rights movement. Ms. Parks' actions on December 1, 1955 led to the desegregation of American society and enabled all of this Nation's citizens to realize freedom and equality.

The arrest of Ms. Parks led African-Americans and sympathizers of other races to boycott the Montgomery city bus line until the buses in Montgomery were desegregated. The 381-day Montgomery bus boycott encouraged other courageous people across the United States to organize in protest and demand equal rights for all.

The fearless acts of civil disobedience displayed by Rosa Parks and others resulted in the United States Supreme Court, on November 13, 1956, affirming a district court decision that held that Montgomery segregation codes deny and deprive African-Americans of the equal protection of the laws. This decision would lead to other landmark Supreme Court decisions in which the Court would rule in the interest of justice and equality.

In the years following the Montgomery bus boycott, Ms. Parks moved to Detroit, MI in 1957 and continued her civil rights work by working in my district office. Ms. Parks was with the office from 1965 until 1988. In the more than 20 years that Ms. Parks was in the office, she worked with a tireless spirit for the people of Detroit and other Americans.

In 1987, she started the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development in Detroit, a nonprofit organization which motivates youth to reach their highest potential. So it is with great pleasure and honor that I stand today to recognize not only a civil rights pioneer, but a member of my staff, a constituent, and a friend.

It is in this recognition of the 50th anniversary of Ms. Parks' refusal to give up her seat on the bus, that I ask the Congress and the great people of this Nation to work with the same courage, dignity, and determination exemplified by her to address modern day inequalities and injustices. As a result of Hurricane Katrina, these inequalities and injustices are at the forefront of public consciousness and it is our job to do something about it.

Ms. Parks has said, ``Until everyone can enjoy the same opportunities, people cannot be equal. I am glad that segregation is no longer considered acceptable, but the fight for equal rights must go on until we have the same privileges and opportunities as those who are in power.''

Civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks displayed a defiant act of courage 50 years ago to better this country for all of its citizens. I know that this Congress and the people of this Nation can work to further the ideals of Ms. Parks and the civil rights movement.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a courageous American hero, Rosa Parks. Mrs. Parks passed away on Monday evening at the age of 92 in her home in Detroit, Michigan.

On February 4, 1913, Rosa Louise McCauley was born in Tuskegee, Alabama. The daughter of a carpenter and a teacher, Rosa was home schooled until the age of 11 when she attended Industrial School for Girls in Montgomery. She obtained her high school diploma from Alabama State Teachers College, while caring for her ailing grandmother. Rosa married Raymond Parks in 1932 and volunteered for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, NAACP from 1943 to 1966 while she worked as a seamstress and housekeeper. She and her family eventually moved to Detroit and joined the staff of Congressman John Conyers (D-MI) in 1965, where she worked for 23 years.

Mrs. Parks' finest hour occurred on December 1, 1955, when four black passengers on a bus were asked to give up their seats for a single white man. Three of the passengers complied, one did not. It was at that moment that Rosa Parks changed the course of history forever. What seemed like a simple gesture made a huge impact on the character of our Nation then--and continues to affect our lives now. Following Mrs. Parks' brave gesture, residents of Montgomery then began a boycott of the city's bus system, in order to protest the treatment as second class citizens that African-Americans were subjected to on segregated buses.

Her courage, and the 380-day Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott that followed her heroic stand, culminated in the United States Supreme Court decision in Browder v. Gayle, which declared segregation on buses to be unconstitutional. Her refusal to ``move to the back of the bus'' ultimately helped spark the civil rights movement of the 1960s, which achieved stronger civil rights guarantees for Americans in all areas of life, including housing, employment, schools, and places of public accommodation.

One of Mrs. Parks' main concerns was her desire that Americans understand their rights. The day she refused to give up her seat, she was fed up with being treated as an inferior human being and simply wanted to be treated with dignity. She taught us that we must always defend our rights. We must continue the great work spurred on by Mrs. Parks. As she said later in life, ``[W]ithout courage and inspiration, dreams will die--the dream of freedom and peace.''

On May 21, 1983, as Mayor of the City of Englewood, New Jersey, I had the distinct honor to meet Mrs. Parks and personally bestow upon her a key to that city. In addition, two of our Nation's highest honors have been awarded to Rosa Parks. In 1996, President Clinton bestowed upon Mrs. Parks the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which recognizes meritorious service and outstanding contributions to American life. Three years later, I had the privilege to vote for the bill that awarded a Congressional Gold Medal, our Nation's highest civilian honor, to Mrs. Parks on June 15, 1999 for her ``quiet dignity [that] ignited the most significant social movement in the history of the United States.''

I have also supported two recent pieces of legislation that pay tribute to Mrs. Parks. I voted in favor of H. Con. Res. 208, a resolution which commemorates the 50th anniversary of Rosa Parks' refusal to give up her seat on the bus and the subsequent desegregation of American society. This resolution was unanimously approved by the House of Representatives on September 14, 2005. Another resolution that I support, which will be introduced this week by my colleague, Congressman Mike Rogers, will honor the 50th Anniversary of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which resulted from Mrs. Parks' heroic actions and ultimately led to the Supreme Court decision in Browder. It is my hope that this bill will also be unanimously approved.

Mr. Speaker, I rise with sadness today as our Nation has lost a cherished historical figure and civil rights hero. However, we can all take comfort in knowing how much Rosa Parks changed the course of history and, by doing so, improved the lives of us all.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentleman for yielding.

I am moved by the gentleman's words. I want to thank him for this Special Order. I want to also thank him for wisdom more than his years at that time for the friendship and relationship that he established with Mrs. Parks and the fact that she served and honored all of the congressional staff by being a congressional staffer and working with him over the years.

I want to point out a few items regarding Mrs. Parks and thank her so very much for the service that she has given. John Hope Franklin made a comment that I think is very telling of Rosa Parks: her prominence endures. And she did not strike a cord for African American women, but she struck a cord for Americans. And when we look at the fabric of history, American history, world history, and particularly focus on our history, there were certain volcanic historical incidents in America: the founding of Plymouth Rock, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War I, World War II, certainly different categories, and the beginning of the birth of the civil rights movement in the 20th century.

No one can be more attributed to that than Rosa Parks. For those of us who are the beneficiaries of that simple act from a very diminutive woman, the act of refusing to adhere to an unjust law, we owe her an enormous debt of gratitude.

For those of us who had the pleasure and opportunity of interfacing with her during her lifetime, simply as any one of us would acknowledge being in her presence, again we owe her a debt of gratitude. And, frankly, I think it is important to note that as she sat down on the bus, with intentions to be arrested, she set off a 300-day plus movement, boycott, march, walk, described by Dr. King in his words of watching one of the Montgomerians, if you will, citizens, walk back and forth, back and forth.

Dr. King eventually asked that person who participated in the Montgomery Improvement Association was she not tired. And in her own words she said, My feet is tired, but my soul is rested. Rosa Parks set the tone and the movement to empower these citizens in Montgomery, Alabama to walk and walk and walk and walk.

We should not ignore the fact that she was a trained member of the NAACP, and she will acknowledge that her courage, but also her training to accept that nonviolent approach to challenging an unjust law, came through that very effective NAACP training that was utilized across the deep South.

For the NAACP was the first body politic on the ground that empowered Medgar Evers, and Rosa Parks, many others, Christy Adar in my hometown, to become the kind of leaders and pioneers in the civil rights movement.

Mr. Speaker, I want to rise today to thank my good friend and colleague, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), the ranking member of the Committee on the Judiciary, for his voice and giving us the opportunity to speak, and to be able to say, as I close, for there are many of us who want to share in our commitment and purpose and our celebration of Rosa Parks, that, Mr. Speaker, you well know, and I might imagine that someone in your life has spoken to you and taught you and said words are not necessarily the best tribute. It has to be deeds.

So I think we stand tonight, many of us, from the Congressional Black Caucus who happen to be Members of this Congress, to hopefully say to Rosa Parks, as she flies away, for that is a song we often sing in a home-going ceremony, she will fly away, flying up to heaven, is that we are committed to the reauthorization of the 1965 Voter Rights Act, we are committed to the voting rights of every single American, that every vote counts, we are committed to a Nation that respects the human dignity of each person, and we are committed to finally breaking the cycle of segregation, discrimination, and racism in this country.

We owe Rosa Parks that commitment that we will forever be indebted to her by our words. Rosa Parks, will you please rest in peace, and I know that you will fly away.