U.S. Representative Sandy Levin
12th District of Michigan
| For Immediate Release October 25, 2005 |
|
Statement by Rep. Sander Levin on the Death of Mrs. Rosa Parks |
||
(Washington D.C.)- Rep. Sander Levin (D-Royal Oak) today released the following statement on the death of Mrs. Rosa Parks:
“The passing of Rosa Parks provides both a sense of loss and a profound sense of the history that her life symbolizes in our nation’s story. Those of us in Michigan have a special place in our heart for Rosa Parks because for so many years she lived and worked among us.
“Rosa Parks was the ripple that started a wave, and for that she is honored as the ‘Mother of the Civil Rights Movement in America.’ Yet she was a modest woman and in her autobiography Quiet Strength, explained that she did not change things alone. She writes, ‘Four decades later I am still uncomfortable with the credit given to me for starting the bus boycott. I would like people to know I was not the only person involved. I was just one of many who fought for freedom.’
“I have had the privilege of knowing Rosa Parks over decades of the civil rights movement. As she has for millions of Americans, she is for me an enduring spotlight on the need for each of us as individuals to act in our way in the ongoing struggle to end injustice and inequality, and in doing so, to know, by her example, that it can make a difference.”
(####)