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NEWS/S^e Cl^arlotte
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Some ask: Why seek
pardon for Rosa Parks?
Parks
By Bob Johnson
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
MONTGOMERY, Ala. - During the 50th
anniversary of the Montgomery bus boycott
last year, civil ri^ts leaders called for a pardon
of Rosa Parks over her arrest for refusing to
give up her seat to a white man.
But now, some - including the pastor of the
church Parks attended in Montgomery - are
coming out against the idea.
With a bill moving throi^ the
Alabama Legislature to pardon
Parks and perhaps himdreds of
others for violating segregation-
era laws, they say a pardon
implies she did something
wrong.
‘Why would brave people like
this need to get a pardon fiom
anyone? Someone needs to tell them that we
treated you wrong,” the Rev Joseph Remhort,,
pastor ofSt PaulA.M.E. Church, saidMonday
“I want my grandson to know what she did.”
However, Mary Smith Ware, 69, mged pas
sage of the pardon legislation. The black
woman was arrested and fined $10 for refusing
to give up her seat on a crowded city bus about
two months before Parks’ arrest.
"1 should be pardoned because I feel I didn’t
have to get up and give my seat to anyone,”
Ware said.
State Rep. Thad McClammy, a black
Montgomery Democrat and sponsor of the bill,
said the pardons will speli out that they are
being issued because the Jim Crow laws were
wrong. “I’m in no way trying to compromise
history,” McClammy said.
Parks died in October at age 92 at her home
in Detroit, where she had hved since 1957. The
idea of a pardon for her and others was raised
during the December celebrations in
Montgomery honoring the 50th anniversary of
Parks’ arrest and the start of the Montgomery
bus boycott.
Montgomery Mayor Bobby Bright said he
would be uncomfortable pardonii^ Parks and
others.
“They came up and resisted imethical, illegal
and inhumane laws. I feel horribly inadequate
to pardon someone who did nothii^ wrong,”
said Bright, who is white. “We should be ask
ing them to pardon us for the way we treated
her and others in that period.”
The national president of the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference, Charles
Steele, said he would like to see the Legislature
pardon Parks and others.
Stede, a former member of the Alabama
Senate, said he fears that if the arrests remain
on the books, someone in the future will look at
the records and not imderstand the moral con
text of the arrest.
Lillie Mae Bradford, 75, said she was arrest
ed in 1951 after walking to the fiont of a bus to
ask a driver to ask for a different transfer. He
said the driver used a racial slur in ordering
her to the back. She said that arrest has caused
her difficulties over the years.
‘Tt caused me a lot of problems'when I tried
to get state, federal and city jobs because I had
a pohce record,” Bradford said
The pardons, which woiold have to be apphed
for by those arrested or by a family member,
would be available to people who were arrest
ed for violating various segregation-era laws,
like the prohibition against entering whites-
only restaurants and other pubhc places.
You have story ideas.
We’re listening.
Call (704) 376-0496
e-mail editorial@thecharlottepost.com
Charlotte $osit
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