Rosa Parks

It would be easy -- and wrong -- to over-interpret the symbolic meaning of the Rosa Parks story. The black woman who helped start the modern civil rights movement by refusing to accept the indignity imposed on her by a white man in Montgomery, Ala., in 1955 is subjected to the indignity and pain of being beaten and robbed by a black man in Detroit, Mich., in 1994.No one should believe America has replaced its "white man problem" with a "black man problem." White racism of a different sort than the 1950s version still is part of the explanation for the economic and social gulf between the races today.

Rush Limbaugh thinks John Lewis should have been armed. "If a lot of African-Americans back in the '60s had guns and the legal right to use them for self-defense, you think they would have needed Selma?" he said recently on his radio show, referencing the 1965 voting rights campaign in which Mr. Lewis, now a congressman from Georgia, had his skull fractured by Alabama state troopers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. "If John Lewis had had a gun, would he have been beat upside the head on the bridge?"

Last week we witnessed the passing of Rosa Parks, the 92-year old "mother" of the modern civil rights movement. Mrs. Parks, who was arrested on December 1, 1955 for refusing to give up her seat to a white man, became a powerful symbol of the movement. On the evening of her arrest, a 26-year-old preacher by the name of Martin Luther King Jr. proclaimed to the world, "Sister Rosa it is better that we walk in dignity than ride in shame," and with those words, a 381-day boycott of buses in Montgomery, Ala., occurred, which resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court striking down an ordinance that required African-Americans to ride on the back of the bus. Mrs. Parks was 42 years old when she refused to give up her seat.

Trayvon Martin's mother Sybrina Fulton on Sunday morning emotionally addressed Baltimore's Empowerment Temple, the church of the Rev. Jamal Bryant who has been at her side as national outcry has built over her son's death. "It's so easy for me to cry right now but I can't because I have work to do," she told the congregation. "I was forced into this position, but I believe God is using me. " Martin, 17, was shot to death in February in Sanford, Fla., returning home after a trip to get snacks at a 7-Eleven.

WASHINGTON -- Ask not what Rosa Parks did for us; ask what we can do in her memory. Every schoolchild should know about the mother of the modern civil rights movement who died Monday at age 92, even if the vagaries of the nation's public schools mean that far too few children of any race have any idea of who this woman was. They should know about the seamstress who knitted together a civil rights movement by simply refusing to give up her seat to...

It was an extraordinary day in American history, and I was there to record it for readers of The Sun. Two weeks ago, a coffin bearing Rosa Parks, an iconic leader of the civil rights movement, was carried by a military guard out of the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, where she had been lying in honor - the first woman ever accorded such a privilege. Her coffin was driven to the Metropolitan A.M.E. Church in Washington for a memorial service. As I sat in the church, I closed my eyes, trying to feel what was really happening before me. This was no history class, it was the end of a life remembered and celebrated, friends telling stories filled with laughter and tears, as it should be. How did I want to remember this moment?

She's a living legend and the namesake of their school.But Rosa Parks, mother of the modern-day civil rights movement, remained a distant figure from history for most students at Baltimore's Rosa Parks-St. Ambrose Catholic School. She was a lesson they had to learn, someone their teachers and parents held up as a role model.Until yesterday, when the tiny, 81-year-old woman paid a visit to fifth-graders in Baltimore -- without ever leaving Detroit.Call it the '60s civil rights movement meets the '90s information superhighway.

It wasn't because her feet hurt and it wasn't because she was tired.Rosa Parks just didn't want to give up her transit bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Ala., in 1956 and, by refusing, changed America. On principle.That is the great set-the-record-straight truth of her book "My Story," which the impromptu civil rights leader brought to Baltimore yesterday to promote and give away to close friends.It was one she reiterated last night, while eating dinner at the Prime Rib with city contractor Victor Frenkil, state budget secretary Charles L. Benton Jr. and Dr. Levi Watkins Jr. of Johns Hopkins.

WASHINGTON - It's not that the legal issues aren't compelling. Indeed, for us journalist types, there are few things sexier than a First Amendment lawsuit. But where the case of Rosa Parks vs. OutKast is concerned, what scrapes at your heart is something beyond the law. For all that the lawsuit may say about freedom of speech, it says more about the disconnect between African-American generations, the wrenching sense that an inheritance of pride and purpose was somehow never passed down.

Non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as cooperation with good. - the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Her feet were not tired. At least, no more so than usual. She always hated that legend, so let us, in this, the week after her death at age 92, set the record straight. And while we're at it, let's correct another misconception: It's not precisely true that she refused to give up her seat to a white man. The seats next to her and across the aisle were empty, vacated by black people who had already heeded the bus driver's command to get up. So there were places for the white man to sit. But under the segregation statutes of Montgomery, Ala., no white man was expected to suffer the indignity of sitting next to a black woman or even across from her. So driver J. F. Blake asked again.

The second-grade students at Johnnycake Elementary in Catonsville have discovered that without George Washington Carver, there might not be peanut butter, and if the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. had not spoken out, schools might not be integrated. In their Black History Month research, they found ordinary men and women, who struggled and won Nobel prizes, Olympic medals and a firm place in the annals of American history. The 7- and 8-year-olds turned their efforts into a museum for their schoolmates Thursday.

In January 1955, Morgan State College students staged an impromptu sit-in at the lunch counter of the Read's drugstore at Howard and Lexington streets in Baltimore, demanding that African-Americans be served. Their protest, along with others at local Read's stores, worked: That month, the retail chain began serving all patrons, black and white, at all of its 37 Baltimore-area lunch counters. But the students' victory has been largely overlooked in the annals of U.S. civil rights history, in part because it was not photographed or widely reported by the mainstream news media.

A public housing community recreation center in Annapolis was dedicated last week to the memory of a longtime activist known as the "Rosa Parks" of Bloomsbury Square. Elsie Virginia Clark, who died in 2004 at the age of 102, led a successful effort to revitalize the once-run-down Bloomsbury Square development in downtown Annapolis. Annapolis Mayor Joshua J. Cohen, House Speaker Michael E. Busch and Carl O. Snowden, chairman of the city housing authority board, were among the public officials who gathered for the dedication Thursday of the Elsie Virginia Clark Community Center.

Domonique Foxworth knows what this story will lead to. He's prepared. Every time someone tries to write about an aspect of his life outside football, there is someone who will read the story and find it infuriating. They'll cite it as an example that he doesn't care enough about his job, because if he did, he would never stop thinking about football. During Foxworth's senior year at Maryland, he got letters from fans suggesting he spend less time reading books and more time watching game film.

Domonique Foxworth knows what this story will lead to. He's prepared. Every time someone tries to write about an aspect of his life outside football, there is someone who will read the story and find it infuriating. They'll cite it as an example that he doesn't care enough about his job, because if he did, he would never stop thinking about football. During Foxworth's senior year at Maryland, he got letters from fans suggesting he spend less time reading books and more time watching game film.

Last weekend, I made a kid cry. I'm glad I did it. I hope you'll have a chance to do it, too. The child was my 10-year-old son, and the place was the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture in downtown Baltimore. Six of us representing three generations - my wife and I, our three children and my father-in-law - were exploring a local cultural institution we'd never visited before, and we were quickly drawn to the exhibit titled "381 Days: The Montgomery Bus Boycott Story."

DETROIT -- Rosa L. Parks, whose defiance of segregation in 1955 led to the bus boycott in Montgomery, Ala., and helped touch off the black civil rights movement, was recovering today after being robbed and assaulted in her house.Mrs. Parks, 81, was treated last night at Detroit Receiving Hospital for facial injuries and had swelling on the right side of her face. Initially listed in good condition, she was discharged without being admitted to the hospital.A man broke in the rear door of Mrs. Parks' home in central Detroit between 8 and 8:20 Tuesday evening, Chief Isaiah McKinnon of the police department was quoted by the Associated Press as saying.

WASHINGTON -- A nation's leaders celebrated a life and said "thank you" to one of the country's true heroines yesterday.The president said "thank you," the speaker of the House said "thank you," the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson said "thank you," all taking their turns at the lectern in the Rotunda of the Capitol.And when she had her chance, Rosa Parks -- whose refusal to give up her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Ala., in 1955 inspired the civil rights movement -- stood and, with helping hands supporting her, looked out on the assembled crowd and said "thank you" for the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor Congress can bestow.

It began before it began. This was in 1905, when the great black scholar W.E.B. DuBois called a meeting of prominent black men. They met on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls because hotels in their own country would not accommodate them and formed what became known as the Niagara Movement. The Movement, which held a subsequent meeting at Harper's Ferry, W.Va., issued a statement that said, in part, "We claim for ourselves every single right that belongs to a freeborn American, political, civil and social, and until we get these rights, we will never cease to protest and assail the ears of America."

'Moonstruck' in Little Italy The Little Italy Film Festival is back in Baltimore for the summer. The popular outdoor film fest's first showing is Moonstruck, the Oscar-winning story about a widow in love with her fiance's brother. The film stars Cher and Nicolas Cage. All the films in the eight-week series are thematically related to Italy. Live entertainment precedes each screening and features Aldo and Corrado Locco playing traditional Italian tunes. The film festival runs Fridays at High and Stiles streets in Little Italy.