Get Off the Bus: Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the life of Ms. Rosa Parks

The Martin Luther King, Jr. Coalition is inviting all local citizens to share in a brief ceremony commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the historic Montgomery Bus Boycott. The ceremony will be held on Monday, December 5, 2005 at 12 noon in the lobby of the Madison Municipal Building (215 Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd.). It will begin at noon with a brief program featuring comments by current civil rights leadership as well as Madison’s Mayor. Their words of reflection will be followed by a reenactment of Ms. Parks’ courageous stand on the bus some 50 years ago.

The boycott, spurred on by Rosa Parks’ courageous refusal to give up her seat on a bus, helped launch a massive grassroots non-violent struggle for freedom and equality. As written in The Daybreak of Freedom, “The Montgomery bus boycott looms as a formative turning point of the twentieth century: harbinger of the African American freedom movement, which in turn inspired movements for freedom around the globe; springboard for the leadership of Martin Luther King Jr. in civil rights, human rights and peacemaking; launching pad for the worldwide era of upheaval known as the “sixties”. The bus boycott stands for all times as one of humankind’s supreme democratic moments, a monumental struggle to actualize the American dream of freedom, equality and constitutionalism. The nonviolent uprising of 1955 and 1956 represented a new founding of American democracy that pushed the nation a quantum leap closer to keeping faith with parchment principles.”

Words of reflection by some of Madison's community leaders will be followed by a reenactment of Ms. Parks’ courageous stand on the bus some 50 years ago. “It’s critical that we don’t forget the sacrifices and struggles that got us where we are today,” explained King Coalition Co-Chair Mona Adams Winston. “It can instruct us in how to confront the issues of today, such as the dire poverty of too many citizens that Hurricane Katrina recently brought to light or the fact that our own state has been recently labeled as the worst place for Black people to live because of outrageously disparate rates at which African Americans are being incarcerated.”

The King Coalition was established in the fall of 1985 to celebrate and carry on the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The Coalition consists of representatives from many sectors of our community. Membership is open to all that are willing to work together in the spirit of harmony. Other sponsors of this event include the NAACP Madison Branch, Urban League of Greater Madison, and City of Madison Minority Affairs Committee. Special thanks to Metro Transit System and their staff for their contribution to making this commemoration a reality.

Posted by Johnny Winston, Jr. at December 5, 2005 8:06 AM
Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas