Elijah Lewis: “On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks sat down on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama and refused to give up her seat to a white man.…”

“On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks sat down on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama and refused to give up her seat to a white man. By sitting down, Rosa Parks was standing up. With dignity, with pride, and with one simple defining act, she began a nonviolent revolution in the American south, a nonviolent revolution that swept across America and swept aside segregation and the laws that divided us into two nations, one black and one white. As a 15-year-old boy growing up in rural Alabama, 50 miles from Montgomery, I was deeply inspired, moved and touched by this simple act of civil disobedience. Rosa Parks taught me and an entire generation the power that one individual can have in standing up for what is right and for what is just. The history books of the civil rights movement will recall Rosa Parks as one of the founders of the new America. This woman, this one woman, was tracked down by the spirit of history. She saw indignity and she exposed it. She saw inequality and she confronted it. She saw injustice and she defeated it. So, Mr. Speaker, it is fitting and appropriate that we honor Rosa Parks by awarding her the Congressional Gold Medal. By honoring Rosa Parks, we honor all of us. We honor America. We honor unborn generations.”