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President Bush and first Lady Laura Bush attended and spoke at World AIDS day in Washington. The President signed a Bill authorizing a statue of civil rights leader Rosa Parks be placed in the U.S. Capitol's Statuary Hall. The President also met Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick the Archbishop of Washington at the White House This evening the President and First Lady attended and participated in the Pageant of Peace program on The Ellipse near the White House during which the National Christmas Tree was lit. Yesterday the First Lady made a visit to the Church of the Epiphany in Washington,...

December marks 50 years since Rosa Parks sat down on that bus in Montgomery and the young Dr. Martin Luther King emerged as a prophet for the civil rights movement. How far have we come as a nation since then? The movement ended legal apartheid in America. African-Americans have a right to sit anywhere on that bus, to use the restaurants and libraries, to go to the same schools. Separate-but-equal has been condemned by the courts; integration and equal opportunity is the law of the land. And African-Americans have the right to vote, backed by a Voting Rights Act that...

The world knew Rosa Parks as a civil-rights icon: the quiet, shy, unassuming seamstress who on Dec. 1, 1955, refused to surrender her seat on a Montgomery, Ala., city bus to a white man, as local law required. Her arrest led to a 380-day bus boycott, a U.S. Supreme Court decision that desegregated public transportation in the city, mass protests that catapulted Martin Luther King Jr. to fame, and wide-ranging changes in the social order. That part of her story most everyone seems to know. But, unknown to many, before she was a civil-rights catalyst, she was a devoted Christian...

Using Rosa ParksPosted: November 16, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com Was the attention given to the death of Rosa Parks overdone, and if so, why? This question came to mind as I watched and listened to the funeral services for the woman credited with sparking the civil-rights movement. Nearly every liberal demagogue alive showed up at Rosa Parks' funeral to score political points, including the Clintons, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Louis Farrakhan, and NAACP leaders. Rosa Parks became the first woman to lie in honor in the Capitol Rotunda, sharing the tribute bestowed upon Abraham Lincoln, John F....

BERKLEY, Mich. (AP) — A black parent and the NAACP are criticizing a middle school's choice to perform a song that they say glorifies slavery. The song, "Pick a Bale of Cotton," is on the folk music choir program Wednesday at predominantly white Anderson Middle School in the Berkley School District. The song's lyrics include, "Jump down, turn around, pick a bale of cotton. Gotta jump down, turn around, Oh Lordie, pick a bale a day." Greg Montgomery said he complained to school officials, and when he was dissatisfied with their response, decided to pull his 11-year-old daughter China from...

RUSH: Seems I've heard this before. Has Clinton not told this story before? It's hard to remember. But here's Bill Clinton during his eulogy for Rosa Parks yesterday in New Fallujah. CLINTON: I remember as if it were yesterday that fateful day 50 years ago. I was a nine-year-old southern white boy who road a segregated bus every single day of my life. And I sat in the front. Black folk sat in the back. When Rosa showed us that black folks didn't have to sit in the back anymore, two of my friends and I who strongly approved of...

When the late Rosa Parks was laid to rest Wednesday at Detroit’s Woodlawn Cemetery, Americans also paid their last respects to the brand of civil-rights activism that she embodied. By refusing to yield her seat to a white man in the front of a segregated Montgomery, Alabama bus on December 1, 1955, Parks (who died October 24 at age 92) both launched and epitomized a dignified, determined fight against hardened bigotry. It spread from the ultimately successful, 381-day Montgomery bus boycott, to sit-ins at Whites-Only lunch counters, to Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech, to President Lyndon...

I never thought I would be defending Bill Clinton on FreeRepublic. Mark this date as an historic moment. Clinton might have actually told the truth. From the text of his Rosa Parks funeral speech (which, of course, he managed to make about himself) CLINTON: I remember, as if it were yesterday, that fateful day 50 years ago. I was a 9-year-old southern white boy who rode a segregated bus every single day of my life. I sat in the front. Black folk sat in the back. When Rosa showed us that black folks didn't have to sit in the back...

There's a reason thousands of people turned out for Rosa Parks' funeral yesterday. On Dec. 1, 1955, when she refused to lift her bottom from a bus seat in Montgomery so that a white man could put his down, American history was cut into two parts - before the civil rights movement and after it. Parks had no idea that her refusal would become a standard by which the nonviolent movement would judge itself as it grew to take on all of the grand dragons of Southern segregation. Yet it is important to understand that Rosa Parks, the young Martin...

If you reside in Detroit, as I do, your radio and TV broadcast airwaves are dominated by live coverage of Rosa Parks' funeral. All other programming is pre-empted -- so we can be lectured by racists and race merchants. Right now, I'm listening to Louis X a/k/a Louis Farrakhan. Why is this racist loon a prominent speaker at this woman's funeral? If he had it his way, Catholics and other Christians, Jews, Whites, Asians, Gays, Arabs, and anyone not Black Muslim would not be riding in the back of the bus: they'd be dead. Is Rosa Parks' funeral the place...

DETROIT, United States (AFP) - Former president Bill Clinton and African-American leaders joined thousands of mourners who swayed in their pews, singing "We Shall Overcome" and other gospel standards in a final tribute to Rosa Parks at the funeral of the civil rights icon. Thousands who were unable to squeeze into the huge church's overflow rooms waited patiently outside for a chance to say goodbye to Parks, known as the "mother" of the US civil rights movement, who died on October 24 aged 92. Inside the church, soul music legend Aretha Franklin hushed the assembly with her moving rendition of...

Rosa Park's legacy should not be compromised by civil rights leaders By Kevin Fobbs What Detroit and the nation saw with the funeral of civil rights legend Rosa Parks was not a celebration of her sainted effort to sit down for the freedom of generations to follow, but a marathon of speeches which were tied more to an agenda of liberal politics and causes than to the very simple, very heroic and very noble act which launched a civil rights revolution. I was perplexed by the length as much as I was mystified by many of the messages which were...

DETROIT - A soaring rendition of "The Lord's Prayer" moved thousands of mourners at the funeral of civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks on Wednesday, with a preacher bidding: "Mother Parks, take your rest." Former President Clinton, his wife, Sen. Hillary Clinton, and hundreds of other mourners paid their respects at Parks' open casket before the start of the funeral service that included the prayer in song by soprano Brenda Jackson. Those in the audience held hands and sang "We Shall Overcome" as family members filed past the casket before it was closed just before noon. Bishop Charles Ellis III of...

We stand on the shoulders of giants, and one of those, the diminutive Rosa Parks, was honored by the American people this week, as her body lay in the Capitol Rotunda and thousands walked to pay their respects. Even as we honor Rosa Parks for her courage and her historic commitment, we must not romanticize her mission. She was not an innocent seamstress when she refused to give up that seat on the bus in Montgomery, Ala. She was a freedom fighter, an officer of the NAACP at a time when the organization was banned from most parts of the...

Harvard law professor Charles Ogletree and other supporters of reparations for Tulsa's 1921 Race Riot promised Sunday to continue their quest despite continued setbacks. "It's Greenwood time, it's Tulsa time . . . it's time to be paid for Tulsa's 1921 Race Riot, time to bring Greenwood back," Ogletree said during a three-hour event at Sanctuary Evangelistic Church, 1228 E. Fifth St. The program, which featured Ogletree; U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif.; and Chicago Alderman Dorothy Tillman, was billed as a congressional hearing but sounded more like a revival meeting. About 10 of the 97 remaining black survivors of the...

In a ghoulish exploitation of the memory of a secular saint, Democrats seem intent on using Rosa Parks to attack Sam Alito. A few minutes ago, Jesse Jackson stated that Alito is a "states rights man" whereas Rosa Parks was the victim of states rights. Now, Chuck Schumer, apparently using the same DNC playbook,wondered whether Alito: "will use his seat to reverse much of what Rosa Parks put in place." Shameless.

Let the record show that at 10:47 AM on the day of Sam Alito's nomination, Jesse Jackson lumped Alito with the worst of Jim Crow. Speaking of Rosa Parks, Jackson said: "The laws that Rosa Parks fought against were based on states rights. Alito is a states rights person. The struggle continues."

Rosa Parks: Where have you gone? By Horace Cooper Oct 30, 2005 Contributing Columnist Like Paul Simons lament for Joe DiMaggio, a nation turns its lonely eyes to Rosa Parks, an authentic American hero who passed away this week. She was a model of virtue a legend, one of TIME magazines 100 Most Important People of the Century, a hero the likes of which well not see again soon. Her path to glory had humble beginnings. She was an ordinary woman a seamstress in fact who did the extraordinary. Born Rosa Lee McCauley in Tuskegee, Alabama, she grew up on...

At least that's the word I got from the friend of someone who knows someone in the WH who knows. Okay, I realize this is not a great source -- so please go easy -- but it does sound plausible and a great way for the White House to honor Rosa Parks, an authentic african-american heroine, by nominating Janice Rogers Brown as the first african-american woman to the Supreme Court.

The celebration of Rosa Parks's extraordinary contribution to America presents an excellent opportunity for me to summon all the strength at my command so that I may shout at the top of my lungs: "Thank God Almighty for liberal judicial activism." I suppose this makes me a heretic in a town where radical right dogma reigns supreme, especially after the trashing of White House counsel and now-withdrawn Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers. But I'll still pay tribute to activist judges. After all, it was a default by elected leaders that led an "activist" Supreme Court to decide in 1956 that...