2008 Woodie Awards
Role of Women in Social Movements Focus at Rosa Parks Event
Genise Clark
Issue date: 1/23/06 Section: News
- Page 1 of 1
Students and faculty turned out for the "Remembering Mrs. Rosa Parks" program on Wednesday, Jan. 18, at the Dana Library at Rutgers-Newark.
"Mrs. Parks is remembered with fondness as the mother of the Civil Rights movement," said event moderator Clement Alexander Price, a Board of Governor's Distinguished Service Professor of History and director of the Institute on Ethnicity, Culture and the Modern Experience.
Price said that our memory of Parks is shaped by her gender, social class, and race.
"She was a woman in the most male-centered region in the nation. She was college educated. She was a middle class stature in a black group largely known to be impoverished. She was a black person stepping onto the national and the international stage when that stage was seemingly dominated by whites."
Parks, who passed away last October at the age of 91, is considered to be one of history's icons, and a role model to society. She is known for igniting the movement to end segregation on buses in Montgomery, Ala., after refusing to give up her seat for a white man.
Parks was not the first person to be arrested on Montgomery buses, but she did become a symbol for the mistreatment, and the desire to end it. This resulted in blacks boycotting buses, and the U.S. Supreme Court declaring segregation on buses unconstitutional.
Tynesha McHarris, an NCAS student and member of the Black Organization of Students, stressed the importance of Parks being a woman so prominent in the Civil Rights movement.
"Rosa Parks was a woman, and very few times when we look back at the Civil Rights movement, and the Black Power movement, do we rarely see women as the symbolic figures for the movement. I think that's important especially for women of color to see a woman that is called the mother of the Civil Rights movement," McHarris said.
McHarris was part of the event's discussion panel, which included sociology and anthropology Professor Sherri Ann Butterfield, women studies director and Professor Jyl Josephson and urban education Professor Carmen Kynard.
The panel encouraged students to get involved in school and community organizations as a way to continue the movement for equality. McHarris encouraged fellow students to get involved with university issues such as tackling the lack of minority professors.
After the event, McHarris applauded the university for sponsoring the Rosa Parks program.
"It seems our generation knows less and less about our history. I think we need to keep going to programs like this because we need to know our history, because who's going to tell the younger generation?"
Nathan Fishman, a senior marketing major in attendance, agreed.
"Lately, I've been feeling that I spend a lot of money to go to a university and not get the education that I want. Meanwhile, I've gone to Martin Luther King Day, a celebration in New Brunswick, and things like this tribute to Rosa Parks. This is the type of education I want."
"Mrs. Parks is remembered with fondness as the mother of the Civil Rights movement," said event moderator Clement Alexander Price, a Board of Governor's Distinguished Service Professor of History and director of the Institute on Ethnicity, Culture and the Modern Experience.
Price said that our memory of Parks is shaped by her gender, social class, and race.
"She was a woman in the most male-centered region in the nation. She was college educated. She was a middle class stature in a black group largely known to be impoverished. She was a black person stepping onto the national and the international stage when that stage was seemingly dominated by whites."
Parks, who passed away last October at the age of 91, is considered to be one of history's icons, and a role model to society. She is known for igniting the movement to end segregation on buses in Montgomery, Ala., after refusing to give up her seat for a white man.
Parks was not the first person to be arrested on Montgomery buses, but she did become a symbol for the mistreatment, and the desire to end it. This resulted in blacks boycotting buses, and the U.S. Supreme Court declaring segregation on buses unconstitutional.
Tynesha McHarris, an NCAS student and member of the Black Organization of Students, stressed the importance of Parks being a woman so prominent in the Civil Rights movement.
"Rosa Parks was a woman, and very few times when we look back at the Civil Rights movement, and the Black Power movement, do we rarely see women as the symbolic figures for the movement. I think that's important especially for women of color to see a woman that is called the mother of the Civil Rights movement," McHarris said.
McHarris was part of the event's discussion panel, which included sociology and anthropology Professor Sherri Ann Butterfield, women studies director and Professor Jyl Josephson and urban education Professor Carmen Kynard.
The panel encouraged students to get involved in school and community organizations as a way to continue the movement for equality. McHarris encouraged fellow students to get involved with university issues such as tackling the lack of minority professors.
After the event, McHarris applauded the university for sponsoring the Rosa Parks program.
"It seems our generation knows less and less about our history. I think we need to keep going to programs like this because we need to know our history, because who's going to tell the younger generation?"
Nathan Fishman, a senior marketing major in attendance, agreed.
"Lately, I've been feeling that I spend a lot of money to go to a university and not get the education that I want. Meanwhile, I've gone to Martin Luther King Day, a celebration in New Brunswick, and things like this tribute to Rosa Parks. This is the type of education I want."