Civil rights icon died

[Ouchyfish]

I found a new signature 8).

It's funny, but...he wasn't criticizing Saddam was he?

[Metranon]

there's a pretty large difference between mispelling "Farrakhan" as "Faracon" vs. "Saddham" and "Saddam"

Also i wasn't discussing the former Iraqi dictator's political views....merely the fact that there is no evidence that Iraq under his rulership posed any actual threat to the USA.

[Zanchief]

Yes, because you can't disagree with someone if you can't spell their name properly.

Kinda takes the stink out of the argument though.

[kaharthemad]

well faracon, sharpton, and jackson are idiots

that's "Farrakhan"

normally i wouldn't bother to correct spelling but I find it somewhat ironic that you feel comfortable criticizing this man's political views but yet cannot spell his name correctly.

I dont think enough of Calypso Louie to care how he spells is fucking racist name.

[Martrae]

Rosa Parks and history
Oct 27, 2005
by Thomas Sowell

The death of Rosa Parks has reminded us of her place in history, as the black woman whose refusal to give up her seat on a bus to a white man, in accordance with the Jim Crow laws of Alabama, became the spark that ignited the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

Most people do not know the rest of the story, however. Why was there racially segregated seating on public transportation in the first place? "Racism" some will say -- and there was certainly plenty of racism in the South, going back for centuries. But racially segregated seating on streetcars and buses in the South did not go back for centuries.

Far from existing from time immemorial, as many have assumed, racially segregated seating in public transportation began in the South in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Those who see government as the solution to social problems may be surprised to learn that it was government which created this problem. Many, if not most, municipal transit systems were privately owned in the 19th century and the private owners of these systems had no incentive to segregate the races.

These owners may have been racists themselves but they were in business to make a profit -- and you don't make a profit by alienating a lot of your customers. There was not enough market demand for Jim Crow seating on municipal transit to bring it about.

It was politics that segregated the races because the incentives of the political process are different from the incentives of the economic process. Both blacks and whites spent money to ride the buses but, after the disenfranchisement of black voters in the late 19th and early 20th century, only whites counted in the political process.

It was not necessary for an overwhelming majority of the white voters to demand racial segregation. If some did and the others didn't care, that was sufficient politically, because what blacks wanted did not count politically after they lost the vote.

The incentives of the economic system and the incentives of the political system were not only different, they clashed. Private owners of streetcar, bus, and railroad companies in the South lobbied against the Jim Crow laws while these laws were being written, challenged them in the courts after the laws were passed, and then dragged their feet in enforcing those laws after they were upheld by the courts.

These tactics delayed the enforcement of Jim Crow seating laws for years in some places. Then company employees began to be arrested for not enforcing such laws and at least one president of a streetcar company was threatened with jail if he didn't comply.

None of this resistance was based on a desire for civil rights for blacks. It was based on a fear of losing money if racial segregation caused black customers to use public transportation less often than they would have in the absence of this affront.

Just as it was not necessary for an overwhelming majority of whites to demand racial segregation through the political system to bring it about, so it was not necessary for an overwhelming majority of blacks to stop riding the streetcars, buses and trains in order to provide incentives for the owners of these transportation systems to feel the loss of money if some blacks used public transportation less than they would have otherwise.

People who decry the fact that businesses are in business "just to make money" seldom understand the implications of what they are saying. You make money by doing what other people want, not what you want.

Black people's money was just as good as white people's money, even though that was not the case when it came to votes.

Initially, segregation meant that whites could not sit in the black section of a bus any more than blacks could sit in the white section. But whites who were forced to stand when there were still empty seats in the black section objected. That's when the rule was imposed that blacks had to give up their seats to whites.

Legal sophistries by judges "interpreted" the 14th Amendment's requirement of equal treatment out of existence. Judicial activism can go in any direction.

That's when Rosa Parks came in, after more than half a century of political chicanery and judicial fraud.

[Zanchief]

well faracon, sharpton, and jackson are idiots

that's "Farrakhan"

normally i wouldn't bother to correct spelling but I find it somewhat ironic that you feel comfortable criticizing this man's political views but yet cannot spell his name correctly.

I dont think enough of Calypso Louie to care how he spells is fucking racist name.

Speaking of racists, seems you were wrong about the big "tree" using her death to push their agenda.

[Ouchyfish]

What a crock of shit. People are so gullible. At least I am willing to admit that the whole 9/11 thing was possibly rigged.

[Langston]

Hey - have any other unimportant black people died recently?

[Harrison]

Yes, I've seen a bunch die recently in shootings!

Fucking "gangbangers"

[Phlegm]

From Associated Press:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Rosa Parks, the seamstress whose act of defiance on a public bus a half-century ago helped spark the civil rights movement, will join presidents and war heroes who have been honored in death with a public viewing in the Capitol Rotunda.

Parks, who died Monday in Detroit at age 92, also will be the first woman to lie in honor in the Rotunda, the vast circular room under the Capitol dome.

The House on Friday passed by voice vote a resolution allowing Parks to be honored in the Capitol on Sunday and Monday "so that the citizens of the United States may pay their last respects to this great American." The Senate approved the resolution Thursday night.

It will be only the fifth time in the past two decades that a person has either lain in honor or in state in the Rotunda. The last to lie in state was President Reagan after his death in June last year.

Parks' refusal to give up her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955 led to a 381-day boycott of the city's bus system and helped ignite the modern civil rights movement.

"The movement that Rosa Parks helped launch changed not only our country, but the entire world, as her actions gave hope to every individual fighting for civil and human rights," said Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada. "We now can honor her in a way deserving of her contributions and legacy."

In most cases, only presidents, members of Congress and military commanders have been allowed to lie in the Rotunda.

Parks would be the first woman and second black American to receive the accolade. Jacob J. Chestnut, one of two Capitol police officers fatally shot in 1998, was the first black American to lie in honor, said Senate historian Richard Baker.

Parks also would be the second non-governmental official to be commemorated that way. The remains of Pierre L'Enfant -- the French-born architect who was responsible for the design of Washington, D.C. -- stopped at the Capitol in 1909, long after his death in 1825.

"Rosa Parks is not just a national hero, she is the embodiment of our social and human conscience and the spark that lit the flame of liberty and equality for African Americans and minority groups in this country and around the globe," said Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Connecticut.

Officials with the Rosa & Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development in Detroit said at one point that Parks would lie in repose at the Lincoln Memorial. The National Park Service, however, said those plans were never formalized.

Lila Cabbil, the institute's president emeritus, said Thursday the information was released prematurely and the foundation and the Parks family were working with Reps. John Conyers and Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, D-Michigan, and the White House to make arrangements to have a viewing in Washington.

The Capitol event was one of several planned to honor the civil rights pioneer. Parks will lie in repose Saturday at the St. Paul AME Church in Montgomery, Alabama, and a memorial service will be held at the church Sunday morning.

Following her viewing in the Capitol, a memorial service was planned for Monday at Metropolitan AME Church in Washington.

From Monday night until Wednesday morning, Parks will lie in repose at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit. Her funeral will be Wednesday at Greater Grace Temple Church in Detroit.

Officials in Detroit and Montgomery, Alabama, meanwhile, said the first seats of their buses would be reserved as a tribute to Parks' legacy until her funeral next week. Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick put a black ribbon Thursday on the first passenger seat of one of about 200 buses where seats will be reserved.

"We cannot do enough to pay tribute to someone who has so positively impacted the lives of millions across the world," Kilpatrick said.