Hundreds of children marched on Thursday from the site where Rosa Parks made history 50 years ago, commemorating the day the black seamstress sparked the modern civil rights movement by refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus to a white man.
"Thank you, Rosa Parks. Thank you, Rosa Parks," the children chanted as they marched to the Capitol from the site about eight blocks away where Parks was arrested on Dec. 1, 1955 in the then-racially segregated city.
children's parade
Elijah Taylor, 12, said he joined the children's parade "to give tribute to all those people in Montgomery who walked during the bus boycott" as well as Parks.
"I did it because Rosa Parks stuck up for what was right," said Megan Hughes, 11.
The children, both black and white, joined arms and sang "We Shall Overcome" at the steps of the Capitol.
Earlier on Thursday, Montgomery residents and civil rights figures held a prayer breakfast to remember Parks.
All buses in Montgomery paid tribute to Parks by leaving a seat empty with a display commemorating her act. Other bus systems around the country had similar displays.
Parks died on Oct. 24 at age 92 in Detroit, where she and her husband moved in 1957.
The Montgomery Improvement Association, which hosted the prayer breakfast, was the group that organized and launched the boycott of city buses four days after Parks' arrest. The yearlong boycott, led by the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., became a key moment in the civil rights movement.
empty seats
In New York, empty seats were marked with posters of her reading, "It All Started on a Bus," and bus drivers were keeping headlights on all day.
In Philadelphia, middle school students planned to write comments about Parks on posters on the outside of a bus that would be put into regular service.
Bus tributes were also set up in Boston; Cleveland, Ohio; Newark, New Jersey; and Washington.
In Detroit, a federal building on Detroit's east side was being renamed for Parks in an afternoon ceremony. The resolution renaming the building was signed into law by US President George W. Bush on Nov. 11.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in