Byron Dorgan: “earlier this morning I was in the Senate rotunda with Senator Sessions and Senator Levin from Michigan. As we stood in…”

“earlier this morning I was in the Senate rotunda with Senator Sessions and Senator Levin from Michigan. As we stood in the Rotunda, in addition to paying honor to this great woman whose body lies in State in the Capitol Rotunda, we spoke just a bit about each of our recollections of what Rosa Parks meant to us and to our country. I want to follow on the statement by Senator Sessions to say that as I was in the Rotunda this morning, I was thinking about what kind of courage it must have taken for this woman, a 42-year-old seamstress, getting on a bus at the end of the day, perhaps tired from working all day, understanding that there were then police dogs and fire hoses and clubs and beatings and a lot of trouble, a lot of trouble, I was thinking about the courage it would have had to take for that woman to have done what she did. Her actions of sitting in that seat on that bus and refusing to move to the back of the bus were simple, elegant, dignified but also enormously courageous. I think that is a lesson for all Americans. I couldn't have been more pleased when the Congress, the House and the Senate, did something that was unusual in the history of America. We took action to have the remains of Rosa Parks lie in State in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol Building, the first woman to be so honored in the history of the United States of America. I was enormously moved this morning, standing with my colleagues, Senator Sessions and Senator Levin.…”