Day: February 4, 2013

Centennial Of Rosa Parks’ Birth

Ronald Leave a comment

Today is the centennial of the birth of Rosa Parks, an ordinary African American woman who changed the course of history, when she was arrested in 1955 for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus to a white patron.

What Rosa Parks did sparked the true development of the civil rights movement in America, after many false starts and earlier Supreme Court decisions had failed to bring about enough public attention.

The courage and determination of Rosa Parks helped to bring the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. into public attention, as he led the Montgomery bus boycott, which began the fight against segregation in all public places, and led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 eight and a half years later.

Parks was memorialized upon her death in 2005, and given the honor of having her body lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, DC, and a statue of Parks was commissioned for the Statuary Hall in the Capitol.

So on the centennial of her birth, this is a moment to celebrate in the long struggle for human freedom and dignity in America!

Today An Ironic Day: First Electoral College Election And Day Of Formation Of Confederate States Of America

Ronald Leave a comment

On this day in 1789, George Washington was elected by the Electoral College as the first President of the United States under the Constitution.

Also on this day, in 1861, delegates from six states (South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana) met in Montgomery, Alabama to form the Confederate States of America, a move to form a government that was designed to break up the Union that George Washington represented, when he was elected leader of the nation 72 years earlier.

Texas joined shortly after, and after Fort Sumter, the upper South (Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas) joined as well, and the Civil War, the greatest tragedy of the nation’s history commenced, leading to the death of approximately 620,000 soldiers, two percent of the entire nation.

It is upsetting to hear talk of similar desire of some to rise up against the federal government, as if nothing has been learned in the century and a half since the Civil War!