Rep. Terri Sewell (AL-07) recently honored Rosa Parks on the House of Representatives floor on Wednesday, Dec. 4 in commemoration of the 69th anniversary of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
She also reportedly called for a federal holiday to be designated in Rosa Parks' name. The bill she sponsored, H.R. 308, would designate Dec. 1 as a holiday to honor the Civil Rights figure.
Below is a transcript of a presentation delivered by Sewell on the House floor:
"Mister Speaker, I rise to honor the legacy of an American hero, Mrs. Rosa Parks, as we observe the 69th anniversary of her historic arrest in Montgomery, Alabama.
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks took a bold stand against segregation by refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus. Her quiet, dignified courage sparked the beginning of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and galvanized a movement that changed the very fabric of this nation.
Beginning on December 5th, and continuing for the next 13 months, African Americans in Montgomery, Alabama, brought the city’s bus system to a screeching halt. Their efforts were successful, resulting in the November 1956 Supreme Court decision outlawing racial segregation on public buses.
The change-makers who staged the Montgomery Bus Boycott are a testament to the will of a disenfranchised people to take control of their own destiny, and their success quickly became the global model for nonviolent human rights advocacy.
69 years later, as the benefactors of their sacrifices, we remain indebted to them for laying the foundation of the continued struggle for liberty and justice for all.
That’s why today, I am proud to be leading the effort in Congress to designate December 1st as “Rosa Parks Day” to commemorate her historic arrest.
H.R. 308, the Rosa Parks Day Act, was the very first bill that I introduced in the 118th Congress, along with my colleagues Chairman of the CBC Steven Horsford of Nevada and Congresswoman Joyce Beatty of Ohio.
It will help ensure that Rosa Parks’ brave sacrifice is never forgotten, and it will remind us of the power of ordinary Americans to achieve extraordinary social change.
Moreover, it will become the first federal holiday in our nation’s history to honor a Black woman.
Rosa Parks is a true American hero. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996, the Congressional Gold Medal in 1999, and even became the first woman to lie in state in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda.
Her lifelong work in the fight for equality and justice still resonates today. There is no more befitting figure in our nation’s history to honor with a new federal holiday.
I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting H.R. 308, the Rosa Parks Day Act.
Thank you, and I yield back the balance of my time."
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