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October 25, 2005: NORTON SAYS ROSA PARKS LED AFRICAN AMERICANS TO FREE THEMSELVES

January 9, 2006

Washington, D.C. – Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), who was inspired by Rosa Parks to join the sit-in movement and later became the chair of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, today issued the following statement on the death of Rosa Parks.

“Throughout human history, revolutions have been made by armies, but in our country, one woman sparked the non-violent civil rights revolution with a lonely act of conscience. Our country is fortunate indeed. After centuries of slavery and discrimination, Rosa Parks did not throw a bomb. She protested by keeping her seat on a Jim Crow bus when a white man, in the custom of the time and under the laws of Alabama, demanded that she relinquish her place to him. At great personal risk, she refused. Yet, she knew that black men had been lynched for less.

“I believe, however, that her historic importance lies not only in the non-violent model of protest she set, but also in the mass movement she inspired. For hundreds of years, black people had protested their oppressed condition, but the struggle was known more for great leaders than for grassroots activists. However, the line from Rosa Parks to freedom is direct – the Montgomery bus boycott, the sit-ins that led college kids like me into the movement, the 1963 March on Washington, and the three great civil rights statutes – the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and the 1968 Fair Housing Act. However, there can be no greater contribution than inspiring people to free themselves.”