Alabama State University is joining Montgomery community organizations in honoring Rosa Parks, the mother of the modern civil rights movement. The university will participate with others in the fourth annual Rosa Parks Celebration, a series of events Dec. 1 and Dec. 4 to remember Parks’ heroic actions Dec. 1, 1955, when she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a segregated Montgomery city bus to protest injustice and inequality.

“ASU’s involvement in this celebration is in keeping with the university’s history of participation in the civil rights movement, particularly the Montgomery bus boycott,” said Quinton T. Ross Jr., president of Alabama State.

“Mrs. Parks’ name is synonymous with that pivotal moment in the history of the United States, since her actions served as a catalyst to ignite the yearlong Montgomery bus boycott that historians note was the seminal birth of the modern civil rights movement in the United States. Rosa Parks Day helps to keep alive not only her memory, but also the continuing fight for equal justice in this country,” he said.

Ross said the Rosa Parks Celebration will take place in Montgomery thanks to the action of the Alabama Legislature, which in 2018 voted to designate Rosa Parks Day on Dec. 1.

Alabama Legacy Moment: Rosa Parks from Alabama NewsCenter on Vimeo.

Rosa Parks Day events Dec. 1

The celebration begins Dec. 1 with the Rosa Parks Day Unity Breakfast from 7:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. at Saint Paul AME Church Fellowship Hall, 706 E. Patton Ave. The audience will include elected officials, military, business and community leaders, as well as the public. The speaker is Troy University‘s Michael Jackson.

Rosa Parks’ mugshot. (file)

At 11:30 a.m., the latest tribute to Parks will be revealed outside the Rosa Parks Museum, according to the Montgomery Advertiser. Montgomery artist Ian Mangum created the memorial work of black steel spires with an outline of Parks’ face, identical to the piece he made a year ago for Maxwell Air Force Base. Public viewing will begin at 1 p.m.

Rosa Parks. (file)

From 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. on Dec. 1, the Rosa Parks Day Unity Rally and Walk will be held. It begins with an old-fashioned civil rights rally at Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church and concludes with a unity walk down Dexter Avenue led by the Revs. Cromwell Handy, pastor of Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church and director of ASU’s National Alumni Association; Courtney Meadows, pastor of Hutchinson Street Missionary Baptist Church; and Agnes Lover, pastor of St. Paul AME Church. They will lead the brief rally to the site of Parks’ historic 1955 arrest, which is the present-day location of the Rosa Parks Library and Museum, where a prayer vigil will follow.

At 7 p.m., the activities will conclude with the Rosa Parks Day Community Convocation, an awards program at Parks’ home church, St. Paul AME. The awards will be presented for leadership and commitment to civil rights, voting rights, voter education and overall civic service to the citizens of Montgomery. The event is open to the public.

Events on Dec. 4 

This year’s celebration has expanded to include educational forums Dec. 4 at St. Paul AME Church, with assistance from the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), the historic organization created after Parks’ arrest to provide leadership for the 1955-1956 Montgomery bus boycott.

Portrait of Rosa Parks, c. 1976-1981. (Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, Wikipedia)

The day starts with a 10 a.m. event at St. Paul AME Church, where participants will engage in workshops on mentoring and community leadership.

A noon community forum will engage voices on relevant social justice issues. The forum will be in a town hall format to discuss how citizens can unify and lead to make life better in Montgomery. Eileen Jones, former political reporter with WSFA-12 News, will moderate a panel featuring Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed, Montgomery County Sheriff Derrick Cunningham, Montgomery County Commission Chairman Elton Dean and Montgomery Public School System Superintendent Ann Roy Moore.

Also at the noon forum, a statewide youth essay competition launched in October to honor Parks’ heroism will recognize award winners.

“Reflections: The First 5 Days, Dec. 1-5, 1955,” will feature participants in the Montgomery bus boycott and the civil rights movement, and will offer reflections about the organizational structure, the call to leadership, the cause for social change and other topics.

A U.S. postage stamp honoring Rosa Parks. (file)

Noted historian and author Richard Bailey will lead and moderate “Reflections.” Members of the panel are civil rights icon and acclaimed attorney Fred Gray; Doris Crenshaw, a member of Parks’ NAACP Youth Leadership Council; Loyd Howard, owner of Howard’s Barber Shop where Parks’ husband, Raymond Parks, was employed; chaplain Viola Bradford, a reporter for the Southern Courier Newspaper during the civil rights movement; and Howard Robinson, Alabama State University historian and archivist.

Robinson said ASU was closely associated with the success of the Montgomery bus boycott and played a pivotal role in the birth of the civil rights movement.

“Back all the way to the 1950s, Alabama State was called ‘The Heart of the Civil Rights Movement,’ rightly so, because of the large number of faculty, staff, students and alumni who were among its earliest and hardest proponents,” Robinson said.

Also Dec. 4, Joseph Trimble of the Alabama State Council of the Arts will tell stories about Parks, Nixon and Martin Luther King Jr.