Rosa Parks Day
{{Short description|American holiday in honor of the civil rights leader Rosa Parks}}
{{Infobox holiday
|holiday_name = Rosa Parks Day
|type = Secular
|image =
{{Photomontage
|photo1a = 1956 face detail, Rosa Parks being fingerprinted by Deputy Sheriff D.H. Lackey after being arrested on February 22, 1956, during the Montgomery bus boycott (cropped).jpg
|photo2a = Rosa Parks Bus.jpg{{!}}Montgomery Bus that made Rosa Parks notable
|photo2b =
|photo1b =
|size=300
|border=0
|color=
}}
|image_size = 225px
|caption = Rosa Parks in 1956 and the Montgomery Bus that made her notable
|nickname =
|significance = in honor of Rosa Parks, a civil rights activist
|duration = 1 day
|frequency = Annual
|observedby = United States (California, Michigan, Missouri, Alabama, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Tennessee, and Massachusetts)
|date = February 4 (Missouri and Massachusetts), the 1st Monday after February 4 (Michigan and California), or December 1 (Alabama, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, and Tennessee.)
}}
Rosa Parks Day is a holiday in honor of the civil rights leader Rosa Parks, celebrated in the U.S. states of Missouri and Massachusetts on her birthday, February 4, in Michigan and California on the first Monday after her birthday, and in Ohio, Texas, Alabama, Tennessee, Oregon and several cities and counties on the day she was arrested, December 1.
Rosa Parks Day was created by the Michigan State Legislature and first celebrated in 1998.{{Cite web|url=https://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(d0is1dxz0zzs2pjz1ukf2gtn))/mileg.aspx?page=getObject&objectName=1997-SB-0322|title = Public Act 28 of 1997}} The California State Legislature followed suit in 2000.{{Cite web|url=http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/99-00/bill/asm/ab_0101-0150/acr_116_bill_20000204_chaptered.html|title = ACR 116 Assembly Concurrent Resolution - CHAPTERED}} The holiday was first designated in the U.S. state of Ohio championed by Joyce Beatty, advocate who helped Ohio's legislation pass to honor the late leader.{{citation |url=http://outreach.osu.edu/rp.php |title=Ohio's Rosa Parks Day Placed into National Congressional Record |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111117085546/http://outreach.osu.edu/rp.php |archive-date=November 17, 2011 |df=mdy-all }} It is also celebrated by the Columbus Ohio bus system (COTA) with a special tribute to the late civil rights leader.{{cite web |url=http://cityyearcolumbus.wordpress.com/2011/12/05/cotas-rosa-parks-day/ | title=COTA's Rosa Parks Day|website=City Year Columbus|first=Sarai |last=Exil| date=5 December 2011}} As of 2014, Missouri Governor Jay Nixon proclaimed Rosa Parks Day official in the state.{{cite web|url=http://fox2now.com/2014/02/04/missouri-celebrates-rosa-parks-day/|title=Missouri celebrates Rosa Parks Day|website=Fox2now|date= February 4, 2014}} In 2014, Oregon governor John Kitzhaber declared that Oregon would celebrate its first Rosa Parks Day. In 2021, the Texas Legislature passed HB 3481, recognizing December 1 as Rosa Parks Day in the state. On January 8, 2025, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey Signed Bill H.3075 setting aside February 4 as an annual recognition for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. After Juneteenth became a federal holiday, there are growing calls for this day to also be observed at the federal level. On September 3, 2021, HR 5111 proposes that this day be added to the list of federal holidays.{{cite web|url=https://www.fedsmith.com/2021/09/03/seeking-another-federal-holiday/|title=Seeking Another Federal Holiday (and a Day Off for Federal Employees)|first= Ralph R. |last=Smith|website=FedSmith.com|date=September 3, 2021}}
Observances by state
=Observances by cities and counties =
Origins
{{Main|Rosa Parks|Montgomery bus boycott}}
Rosa Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was a seamstress by profession; she was also the secretary for the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP. Twelve years before her history-making arrest, Parks was stopped from boarding a city bus by driver James F. Blake, who ordered her to board at the back door and then drove off without her. Parks vowed never again to ride a bus driven by Blake. As a member of the NAACP, Parks was an investigator assigned to cases of sexual assault. In 1945, she was sent to Abbeville, Alabama, to investigate the gang rape of Recy Taylor. The protest that arose around the Taylor case was the first instance of a nationwide civil rights protest, and it laid the groundwork for the Montgomery bus boycott.{{cite book|last=McGuire|first=Danielle L.|title=At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance- A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power|year=2010|publisher=Random House|isbn=978-0-307-26906-5|page=8 and 39}}
In 1955, Parks completed a course in "Race Relations" at the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee where nonviolent civil disobedience had been discussed as a tactic. On December 1, 1955, Parks was sitting in the frontmost row for black people. When a Caucasian man boarded the bus, the bus driver told everyone in her row to move back. At that moment, Parks realized that she was again on a bus driven by Blake. While all of the other black people in her row complied, Parks refused, and was arrested{{cite web |title=Rosa Park's arrest report |date=December 1, 1955 |url=http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/primarydocuments/rosa_parks_arrest_report.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130513192600/http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/primarydocuments/rosa_parks_arrest_report.pdf |archive-date=May 13, 2013 |df=mdy-all }} for failing to obey the driver's seat assignments, as city ordinances did not explicitly mandate segregation but did give the bus driver authority to assign seats. Found guilty on December 5,[http://ea.grolier.com/cgi-bin/article?assetid=0303225-00 "Parks, Rosa Louise." Encyclopedia Americana. Grolier Online]{{dead link|date=April 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} (accessed May 8, 2009). Parks was fined $10 plus a court cost of $4,{{cite news|url=http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/10/25/rosa_parks_civil_rights_icon_dead_at_92/?page=3 |title=Rosa Parks, civil rights icon, dead at 92 - The Boston Globe |newspaper=Boston.com |date=2005-10-25 |access-date=2012-09-28|last1=Feeney |first1=Mark }} but she appealed.
Parks' action gained notoriety leading to the Montgomery bus boycott, which was a seminal event in the civil rights movement, and was a political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama. The campaign lasted from December 1, 1955, to December 20, 1956, when a federal ruling, Browder v. Gayle, took effect, and led to a United States Supreme Court decision that declared the Alabama and Montgomery laws requiring segregated buses to be unconstitutional.[http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis55.htm#1955mbb "Montgomery Bus Boycott (Dec 5, 1955 — Dec 21, 1956)"] ~ Civil Rights Movement Archive Many important figures in the civil rights movement took part in the boycott, including Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph Abernathy. The 381-day boycott almost bankrupted the bus company and effectively made segregation in buses unconstitutional and illegal.
See also
- Transit Equality Day
- Public holidays in the United States
- Claudette Colvin, who refused to move from her seat on a Montgomery bus and was arrested nine months before Parks
References
{{reflist|2}}
{{U.S. Holidays}}
{{Federal holidays in the United States}}
Category:Public holidays in the United States
Category:State holidays in the United States
Category:Monuments and memorials to Rosa Parks