Story and photos by Greg Miley, Speakin’ Out News, staff writer
The Rosa Parks Day Huntsville/Madison County Commemoration Services was held on Wednesday, December 1, 2021, at the Huntsville Public Transit Station, located at 500 Church Street, Huntsville, Alabama. Committee chairperson David Person held a press conference at 9:30 a.m.
Three clergy members from Huntsville spoke at the services: Rev. Rose Veal Eby of the Episcopal Church of the Nativity, Bishop Charles Rodgers, Pastor of Hope Community Church, and Rev. Maurice Wright, II, Pastor of Saint John A.M.E. Church. Huntsville Public Transit provided free bus rides all-day on December 1, 2021. Saxophonist Tommy Friend provided music for the event.
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery City bus to a white man, which was the catalyst for the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Before the bus boycott, city buses in Montgomery were segregated, with whites seated in the front and African Americans sitting in the rear of the buses. Rosa Parks had finished her shift as a seamstress at the Montgomery Fair Department Store and waited for the Cleveland Avenue bus to take her home. Parks took an open seat in a section reserved for whites, but as more people boarded at subsequent stops, she was asked to surrender the place to a white man, and she refused, and the police took her into custody. Her arrest sparked outrage throughout the Black community, and on December 5, 1955, the 382-day Montgomery Bus Boycott began, a boycott many consider the starting point of the modern civil rights movement.
Sixty-six years later, near the very spot where Parks took a stand, an artwork and a museum in Montgomery, Alabama was erected to honor her. Alabama Power Foundation provided support for the installation. The location of Parks’ historic arrest, now graced with her image, will serve as a permanent reminder and a beacon of encouragement for the thousands of people who visit the Rosa Parks Museum at Troy University – Montgomery each year, located at 252 Montgomery St., Montgomery.
