Free Republic

<p>Wright participated in a service for the reinterment of the body of the boy with whom Wright, then 12, was sharing a bed in the Mississippi home of Wright's father 50 years ago. It was the night that lit the fuse of the civil rights revolution.</p>

"Several former presidents" -- but apparently not the current one -- will be invited to take part in a celebration marking the 50th anniversary of the Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott. That's according to Weber Merritt Strategies, a Washington, D.C., public affairs firm hired by the Montgomery Improvement Association to publicize the commemoration of the boycott that helped launch the civil rights movement. The organized boycott of the city's segregated buses began on Dec. 5, 1955, in response to the Dec. 1 arrest of Rosa Parks - the seamstress who refused to give up her seat in the "whites-only" section of...

Civil-Rights Icon Rosa Parks Settles Suit DETROIT (Reuters) - Lawyers for civil-rights pioneer Rosa Parks have settled a long-running dispute over the use of her name in song by the hip-hop group OutKast. Under the out-of-court settlement announced on Thursday Parks, 92, will receive an undisclosed amount of money that means her "living and health needs ... will be secure," former Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer, her guardian, said. Medical records released earlier this year as part of the dispute revealed Parks is suffering from progressive dementia. She has rarely appeared in public in recent years. The settlement came with OutKast,...

Ahmed Omar Abul Ali, the Virginia Muslim charged with conspiring to assassinate President Bush, met several times with Zubayr al-Rimi—Al Qaeda’s number two man in Saudi Arabia, killed in a shootout with Saudi forces in September 2003: Abu Ali linked to Saudi Arabia al Qaeda leader. (Hat tip: The Jawa Report.) A Falls Church man accused of conspiring to assassinate President Bush met several times with an al Qaeda leader in Saudi Arabia who once was the target of a global manhunt and a key suspect in an attack that killed nine Americans in Riyadh, law-enforcement authorities said. Ahmed Omar...

<p>In the battle for same-sex "marriage," homosexual rights activists have been using civil rights metaphors to advance their cause.</p> <p>"I am tired of sitting at the back of the bus," said one 37-year-old California man who recently went to San Francisco to "marry" his male partner.</p>

The justices let stand a U.S. appeals court ruling that reinstated Parks' false advertising and publicity claims against OutKast and three Bertelsmann AG (news - web sites) units -- LaFace Records, the record producer, and Arista Records and BMG Entertainment, the distributors. Parks made history in 1955 when she refused to give up her seat to a white man and move to the back of a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Her arrest, which became a defining moment in the civil rights movement, led to a 381-day boycott of the bus system by blacks. It resulted in the end...

NEW HAVEN -- Standing at the front of an auditorium that looked like a castle dining hall, cartoonist Aaron McGruder, of "The Boondocks," leaned into the microphone and said, "All right. Yale." And the packed house applauded, just like that. Through the rest of his nearly two-hour talk on Saturday, McGruder, a 28-year old who looks no older than his college audience, drew guffaws, groans, and loud applause at Yale University's eighth annual Black Solidarity Conference.

Producers Apologize for Jokes in 'Barbershop'; Jackson Wants Scenes Cut CHICAGO — Jesse Jackson says he's pleased the producers of "Barbershop" have apologized for the film's barbs about Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr. and others, but still wants the jokes cut from future DVD and video editions of the hit movie.The producers, Bob Teitel and George Tillman, told The Associated Press on Monday that they had apologized to Jackson on behalf of everyone involved with the film. "I completely did not mean to offend anyone," Tillman said. But Jackson said they must go further and remove those scenes from...