Lin Zhu
Some people are living, but they have been living dead.
Some people have died, but they are still alive; they came, they lived, they fought and they changed the world.
That’s what was conveyed to the public at the candlelight vigil for Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King Thursday night at Pierce College.
Students, faculty and guest speakers gathered here to pay tribute to the two extraordinary women.
Among the celebrity guest speakers at the assembly was the new president of Pierce, Robert Garber, who was inaugurated a month ago.
“This is the first time that I’ve been able to represent the college in a public area,” he said.
“I found it really significant because it’s to honor these two human rights leaders who believed in equal opportunity and took actions throughout their lives to promote equality.”
Rosa Parks (Feb. 4, 1913 to Oct. 24, 2005), dubbed by the U.S. Congress as the “Mother of the Modern-Day Civil Rights Movement,” is famous for her refusal on Dec. 1, 1955 to obey a bus driver’s demand that she give up her seat to a white passenger.
By that time, she was nothing more than an ordinary working woman, wife and a devoted believer in God.
She might have never imagined that her reaction–out of courage and dignity–would make her significant and an icon of the civil rights movement against racial segregation across America.
Coretta Scott King (April 27, 1927 to Jan. 30, 2006), wife of Martin Luther King, Jr., was also a noted community leader in her own right.
She dedicated herself to preserving the memory of her husband and making her voice heard in political issues.
King fought to make her husband’s birthday, Jan. 15, a national holiday.
She was against apartheid and contributed to U.S. pressure on South African government to abolish the racial segregation policy permanently.
“They are the examples of what each of us could do if we decide we want to make a change to this world,” said Patricia Siever, professor of Afro-American history.
We need to join hands. We’re making a difference, but you need to work at it, and you need to love one another.”
Parks’ friend and co-founder of Rosa & Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development, Elaine Eason Steele, recalled the historic arresting of Rosa Parks on the bus in downtown Montgomery, Alabama in 1955 and the later famous bus boycott which launched the wave of protesting for abolishing segregation and promoting equal rights among different races.
“We have come a long way, I must emphasis that we have come a long way.” Said Steele.
In 1955, Parks wound not have enjoyed this honor as we have now with black, white and all nationalities and cultures sitting together and working together.”
The candlelight vigil was the leading event featuring Black History Month initiated by Council of African American Students at Pierce.
Ra’Ven Kelly, a psychology major, and Gary Gray, a journalism major, co-founded CAAS which aims to promote “diversity and equality” among students of all colors, according to Kelly, who is also a close friend of Parks’ and King’s families from childhood.
With passion and enthusiasm, they had worked hard to summon and organize the event and made it true within one month.
“This is our own way to express history and mix the African-American culture with other cultures,” said Gray.
“It’s not only to educate African-American students but also students of all colors.”