The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks (57 page)

130
. As quoted in Darlene Clark Hine and Karen Thompson,
A Shining Thread of Hope
(New York: Broadway, 1998), 275.

131
. Clark, Hall interview, SOHP, 82.

132
. Chapter outline, Box 40, Folder 2, JHC.

133
. Clark to Horton, March 15, 1957, Box 9, Folder 12, HP.

134
. Durr to Foreman, March 1957, Box 1, VDP.

135
. Durr to Foreman, May 7, 1957, VDP.

136
. Diane McWhorter,
Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001), 123; Branch,
Parting the Waters
, 200–201.

137
. Brinkley,
Rosa Parks
, 175–77. Nixon would later talk about how he hadn’t “realized how much I would miss Rosa. Her leaving was a low, low moment for us all” (177).

138
. Sullivan,
Freedom Writer
, 142–43.

139
. Interview with Carter, Rosa Parks File, Box 2, File 7, GMP.

140
. Ibid.

141
. “Reverend Rosa Parks to Speak for NAACP Meeting,”
Plain Dealer
, May 17, 1957.

142
. Jackson,
From Civil Rights to Human Rights
, 85.

143
. Rosa Parks, interview by Steven Millner, January 20, 1980, in Garrow,
The
Walking City
, 564.

144
. Branch,
Parting the Waters
, 201; Brinkley,
Rosa Parks
,175–76.

145
. Jo Ann Robinson was somewhat bitter about her unrecognized leadership as compared to Parks, though she had to balance her considerable work on behalf of the boycott with keeping a somewhat low profile to protect her job (Burns,
Daybreak of Freedom
, 35).

146
. Brinkley,
Rosa Parks
, 175.

147
. “Rosa Parks Quits ’Bama,”
Pittsburgh Courier
, August 17, 1957.

148
. Skwira, “The Rosa Parks Story,”14.

149
. Chester Higgins, “Why Mrs. Parks Left Alabama,”
Pittsburgh Courier
, August 31, 1957.

150
. Ibid.

151
. Anderson, “How Has the Dramatic Bus Boycott Affected Montgomery Negroes.”

152
. Ibid. Anderson describes Raymond as “ailing.”

153
.
The Papers of Martin Luther King Jr., Volume IV: Symbol of the Movement, January 1957-December 1958
, Clayborne Carson et al., eds. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 261n1.

154
. Rosa Parks, taped interview by Jim Haskins, December 28, 1988, JHC.

155
. John Conyers, author interview, March 11, 2011.

156
. Anderson, “How Has the Dramatic Bus Boycott Affected Montgomery Negroes”; “MIA Did Help Rosa Parks,”
Pittsburgh Courier
, December 14, 1957.

157
. Parks, interview,
Eyes on the Prize
.

158
. Nixon, interview,
Eyes on the Prize
.

159
. Earl Selby and Miriam Selby,
Odyssey: Journey through Black America
(New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1971), 64–65.

160
. Charles Payne,
I’ve Got the Light of Freedom
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 270.

161
. Clark, Hall interview, SOHP.

162
. Selby,
Odyssey
, 65. They note, “As Mrs. Parks, looking so fragile, sat there in Congressman Conyers’s office, reliving those last days in Montgomery, the pauses came longer between her words.”

163
. John Bracey, author phone interview, January 12, 2011.

164
. Parks interview transcripts, Box 40, Folder 2, JHC.

165
. Parks to Current, April 3, 1957 Box III: A-124, Folder 8, NAACP; Durr to Foreman, Wednesday, February 1957, Box 2, Folder 128, VDP. Durr writes that while Nixon is afraid of speaking to the ECLC, Parks “says she is not afraid.”

166
. Eliot Wigginton,
Refuse to Stand Silently By: An Oral History of Grassroots Social Activism in America, 1921–1964
(New York: Anchor, 1991), 234.

167
. “Court Issues Injunction Against NAACP in State,”
Alabama Journal
, June 1, 1956.

168
. In 1958, the Supreme Court sided with the NAACP and freedom of association, ruling the organization had a right not to turn over its membership lists.

169
. Press release, Box 201, Folder 2, JMC;
The Papers of Martin Luther King Jr., Volume IV: Symbol of the Movement, January 1957-December 1958
, Clayborne Carson et al., eds. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 270.

170
. King, “The Look to the Future,” Box 13, Folder 6, MHP.

171
. Horton remembered seeing Berry and Friend talking; they later denied they knew each other, and Berry apologized to Horton for not revealing his identity and putting the school at such risk. John Glen,
Highlander:
No Ordinary School
(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1988), 185.

172
. Garrow,
Bearing the Cross
, 98.

173
. Rosa Parks, Myles Horton, and E. D. Nixon, radio interview by Studs Terkel, June 8, 1973, transcript, Box 14, Folder 4, MHP.

174
. Glen,
Highlander
, 183.

175
. Georgia Commission “Communist Training School” broadside, Folder 2–17, RPP.

176
. Trezzvant W. Anderson, “GA. Agency Keeps Hate Pot Boiling!”
Pittsburgh Courier
, January 4, 1958.

177
. Parks to Clark, August 31, 1959, Box 22, Folder 22, HP.

178
. Ibid.

179
. There are differing accounts of whether she or Raymond made the decision. In this account, she says it was Raymond. “Quit Montgomery,”
Cleveland Call and Post
, August 24, 1957.

180
. Loretta White, author phone interview, February 20, 2012.

181
. “Pride, Not Money, Rewarded Her Refusal to Stand,”
Atlanta Journal
, December 1980, in Rosa Parks file, BWOHP.

182
. Sullivan,
Freedom Writer
, 152. Durr continues, “I do miss her so much as she was such a fine and firm person, not exactly concrete but at least mighty firm asphalt. I feel now that I am paved with pebbles or cobblestones, firm but rough and shaky.”

183
. Selby,
Odyssey
, 64–65.

184
. E. D. Nixon, interview by Norman Lumpkin, April 11, 1973, Alabama Center for Higher Education Statewide Oral History Project, Alabama State University Archives.

185
. White, author interview; Barbara Alexander, author phone interview, May 23, 2012.

186
. Parks to King, August 23, 1957,
The Papers of Martin Luther King Jr., Volume IV: Symbol of the Movement, January 1957–December 1958
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 261.

187
. Parks, Millner interview, in Garrow,
The Walking City
, 565.

188
. The process of her hiring is not fully clear. Rosa wrote to Raymond on August 27, 1957, on her safe arrival at Hampton. In a Pittsburgh speech around the time of her move, she explained that they would soon be leaving Montgomery, but then she would be moving to Virginia. Document I-E-3, RPA.

189
. “Mrs. Rosa L. Parks Joins Staff at Hampton Institute,”
Independent Call
, October 26, 1957, HP.

190
. Documents I-A-8, I-A-10, I-A-14, I-D-29, I-D-35, I-D-50, RPA.

191
. “Alabama Bus Boycott Heroine Now Living Quietly in Detroit,”
Afro-American
(Baltimore), December 30, 1961.

192
. “Tabula Rosa,”
On the Media
, National Public Radio, October 28, 2005,
http://www.onthemedia.org/
.

193
. Hazel Garland, “Things to Talk About,”
Pittsburgh Courier
, April 5, 1958.

194
. Brinkley,
Rosa Parks
, 178.

195
. McCauley, author interview.

196
. Parks to Clark, May 4, 1959, Box 22, Folder 22, HP.

197
. Vonzie Whitlow, author interview, March 22, 2012.

198
. Alex Poinsett, “The Troubles of Bus Boycott’s Forgotten Woman,”
Jet
, July 14, 1960.

199
. “Alabama Boycott Heroine Can’t Find a Job!”
Michigan Chronicle
, May 23, 1959.

200
. Hine,
Hine Sight
, 39.

201
. Parks to Clark, June 2, 1959, Box 22, Folder 22, HP.

202
. Clark to Parks, September 4, 1959 Box 22, Folder 22, HP.

203
. Letter from Progressive Civic League, undated, Box 22, Folder 22, HP. In this solicitation letter, they write, “The physical and mental strain brought on by this embarrassing ordeal [loss of job and having to leave Montgomery] caused Mrs. Parks to be recently hospitalized and still having need of medical care.”

204
. “Reminiscences of Rosa Louise McCauley Parks,” August 22-23, 1978, BWOHP, 256.

205
. Transcript of Bates’s speech, Box III C64 Folder 6, NAACP. The first record I have found of Parks being spotlighted at a Detroit NAACP public event is at a June 1964 mass rally at People’s Community Church where Ralph Abernathy was the speaker (Folder 3-5, RPP).

206
. Wright to Johnson, September 10, 1957, Box III: C-64, Folder 5, NAACP.

207
. Current to Johnson, November 16, 1960, Box III: C-65, Folder 5, NAACP.

208
. Parks to Clark, April 29, 1960, Box 22, Folder 22, HP.

209
. The Wayne County Board of Social Welfare collection division, Elise office, was in charge of her case (no. AA280283). See Box III: C-65, Folder 5, NAACP.

210
. For Parks, $560 translated to more than a year’s rent at that time. Poinsett, “The Troubles of Bus Boycott’s Forgotten Woman.”

211
. Parks to King, March 14, 1960,
The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Volume V: Threshold of a New Decade, January 1959–December 1960
, Clayborne Carson et al., eds. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 389.

212
. Ibid., see caption and footnotes 1 and 2.

213
. As quoted in Current to Wilkins, September 29, 1960, Box III: A-242, Folder 5, NAACP. Current makes it seem that he had contacted Lasker Smith on his own after reading of Parks’s plight, when instead it was Smith who had contacted him.

214
. Parks to Septima Clark, May 19, 1960, Box 14, Folder 4, MHP.

215
. Workshop with Rosa Parks, Septima Clark, and others, May 27, 1960, Highlander UC 515A, tape 202, part 1, HP.

216
. Ibid.

217
. Ibid.

218
. Parks to Clark, June 26, 1960, Box 22, Folder 22, HP.

219
. Clark may have facilitated the Parks’ move to the PCL as letters from Parks to Clark mention getting in touch with Mollie Faison (who was the social worker at PCL) per Clark’s suggestion. June 2, 1959, Folder 22, Box 22, HP.

220
. Poinsett, “The Troubles of Bus Boycott’s Forgotten Woman.”

221
. Ibid.

222
. Parks to Clark, June 26, 1960, Box 22, Folder 22, HP.

223
. “Rosa Parks Forgotten by Negroes: Montgomery Heroine in ‘Great Need,’”
Pittsburgh Courier
, July 1960.

224
. “Bus Boycott ‘Trigger’ Figure in Dire Straits,”
Los Angeles Sentinel
, July 7, 1960.

225
. “Sentinel Story Helps Bus Boycott Heroine,”
Los Angeles Sentinel
, July 14, 1960.

226
. “Mrs. Rosa Parks Cited as ‘Forgotten Woman,’”
Baltimore Afro-American
, July 9, 1960.

227
. “Detroiters Honor Mrs. Rosa Parks,”
Atlanta Daily World
, September 14, 1960.

228
. Smith to Current, July 11, 1960, Box III: A-242, Folder 5, NAACP.

229
. River Rouge-Ecorse branch records, Box III: C-69, Folder 8, NAACP.

230
. River Rouge-Ecorse branch records, Box III: C-69, Folders 8, 9, and 10, NAACP.

231
. Smith to Current, September 4, 1960, Box III: A 2-42, Folder 5, NAACP.

232
. Memo from Current to Wilkins, September 29, 1960, Box III: A-242, Folder 5, NAACP.

233
. Memo from Current to Wilkins, November 16, 1960, Box III: A-242, Folder 5, NAACP.

234
. Ibid.

235
. Ibid.

236
. Current to Johnson, November 16, 1960, Box III: A-242, Folder 5, NAACP.

237
. Correspondence between Johnson and Current, Box III: C-65, Folder 5, NAACP.

238
. No letters found on the Parks’s behalf in the files which cover portions of the branch’s activities during those years; there are letters on behalf of other Detroiters in these files. Box III: C-64 and C-65, NAACP.

239
. Whitlow, author interview.

240
. Parks to Clark, January 26, 1961, Box 22, Folder 22, HP.

241
. Parks to Horton, August 9, 1962, Box 22, Folder 22, HP. Her letter says her husband “does not keep well” though was “still working.” Raymond’s health suffered considerably in the 1960s and his drinking continued.

242
. “Alabama Bus Heroine Now Living Quietly in Detroit,”
Baltimore Afro-American
, December 30, 1961.

243
. Al Duckett, “Know the Negro,”
Chicago Defender
, December 29, 1963.

244
. Parks,
My Story
, 184–85; Brinkley,
Rosa Parks
, 181–83.

245
. McWhorter,
Carry Me Home
, 545.

246
. “SCLC Honors Ms. Rosa Parks,”
Milwaukee Star
, August 24, 1972.

247
. Jackson,
From Civil Rights to Human Rights
, 183.