December 1 designated 'Rosa Parks Day' in Ohio

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Tuesday, December 13, 2005

CONTACT:  Diann Thomas Beasley (614) 466-5343

December 1 designated ‘Rosa Parks Day’ in Ohi0

The Ohio House of Representatives today voted to designate December 1st as “Rosa Parks Day” in the State of Ohio.  The legislation, sponsored by Assistant Minority Leader Joyce Beatty, D-Columbus, passed without opposition 94-0.  According to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), Ohio becomes the first state in the Union to permanently observe Rosa Parks’ courageous refusal to give up her seat on a public bus during the era of Jim Crow laws.

Most historians date the beginning of the modern civil rights movement in the United States to December. 1, 1955, the day Rosa Parks, an unknown seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama, refused to give-up her bus seat.  A young pastor named Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. assisted in forming the Montgomery Improvement Association, which called for a boycott of the city-owned bus company.  The boycott lasted 381 days.  Their cause persuaded the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down the Montgomery ordinance that outlawed racial segregation on public transportation.  Ms. Parks died on October 24, 2005, at the age of 92. 

“Rosa Parks made history in life and death,” said Rep. Beatty.  “In honor of this remarkable woman, may we remember that the values and ideals found in the Constitution and Declaration of Independence are for all of us.  ‘That’s what ‘Rosa Parks Day’ is all about.”

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