Kendra S. Horn: “I think every American over 45 years of age remembers the heroic stand that Rosa Parks took. That stand inspired the…”

“I think every American over 45 years of age remembers the heroic stand that Rosa Parks took. That stand inspired the Nation, and the inspiration of the Nation ultimately inspired Congress--both the House and the Senate. She did this at the beginning of the last half of the decade of the 1950s. She set an example of what one person can do to change a Nation. And she did change a Nation, because from her act of resistence on a segregated bus and the organization that followed led to the role of Dr. Martin Luther King. Rosa Parks gave recognition to all who might have doubted about conditions in the South. Of course, the Supreme Court ruled that what she fought was unconstitutional, and that was one of the many particular state segregation laws that the Supreme Court of the United States struck down in the decade of the 1950s and the 1960s. There was still going to be a longer struggle ahead. I was on the Senate staff at that time working on these bills. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was certainly one of them. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was another. Rosa Parks' definance showed that black Americans--African- Americans--could organize themselves, could do the right thing in line with the Constitution. That is exactly what her inspiration meant. Whether it was segregation in the South or in the North, or in the West, or in the East, no group would stand for any form of discrimination against any group because of their race, color or creed.”