Fellow Comrades:
It is with great sadness that Comradette Rosa Parks has passed away. Once a valiant symbol against rascism and sexism, she has passed away after fighting bravely for equality in the people's cause. The story here at the Always Biased Channel: http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=1247107&page=1.

A fellow comrade of mine has suggested that we nominate her the award of "Hero of the People" (Герой Народа). If you agree, please add your vote to the award nomination. Remember, however, that it doesn't matter who votes...it's who counts the votes.

That's all for now.

Fighting racism with sexism, or something like that,
Vladimir Ivanov
Soviet History and Re-education Headquarters, Marxton, District of Commissars, USSA

It seems that Rosa Parks was not exactly an ardent revolutionary and ideologue in the mold of Rosa Luxemburg but the Party was able to use her life story to the full extent to undermine the hated capitalist system. The fact that she later got mugged in 1994 by a real revolutionary, a spontaneous Marxist who wanted to liberate some of her money so he could liberate and expand his mind a bit more - and she didn't appreciate it - speaks for itself.

In 1994, Parks' home was invaded by a 28-year-old black man who kicked down her door, beat her and took $53. The attacker, Joseph Skipper, pleaded guilty, blaming the crime on his drug problem.

from today's New York Post -
https://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/30035.htm

DEATH OF A GIANT

By CLEMENTE LISI

October 25, 2005 -- Civil-rights icon Rosa Parks, the black seamstress whose refusal to give her seat on an Alabama bus to a white man sparked a revolution in race relations, died yesterday in her Detroit home. She was 92.

Parks' act of defiance in 1955 changed the course of American history and earned her the title "The Mother of the Civil Rights Movement."

At the time, Jim Crow laws required separation of the races in public places throughout the South.

Parks was riding in the front of a Montgomery city bus — which was reserved for white customers — on Dec. 1, 1955.

When a white man demanded her seat, she refused to get up. Parks was jailed and fined $14.

Her action became the catalyst for a movement that broke the back of legalized segregation and fueled the civil-rights movement that was launched by a then-little-known Baptist minister named Martin Luther King Jr.

"At the time I was arrested, I had no idea it would turn into this," Parks said. "It was just a day like any other day. The only thing that made it significant was that the masses of the people joined in."

Speaking in 1992, Parks noted that, according to historical accounts, "my feet were hurting and I didn't know why I refused to stand up when they told me."

Parks said the "real reason" was that she "had a right to be treated as any other passenger. We had endured that kind of treatment for too long."

The 381-day Montgomery bus boycott came a year after the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark declaration that separate schools for blacks and whites were "inherently unequal."

The movement culminated with the 1964 federal Civil Rights Act, which banned racial discrimination in public accommodations.

After taking her public stand for civil rights, Parks had trouble finding work in Alabama.

She and her husband, Raymond, moved to Michigan in 1957.

Parks worked as an aide in Rep. John Conyers' Detroit office from 1965 to 1988.

Raymond Parks died in 1977. The couple had no children.

In 1996, Parks received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and in 1999 was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the nation's highest civilian honor.

The Rosa Parks Library and Museum opened in 2000 in Montgomery and features a 1950s bus and a video that recreates the conversation that preceded her arrest.

"Are you going to stand up?" the bus driver asked.

"No," Parks answered.

"Well, by God, I'm going to have you arrested," the driver said.

"You may do that," Parks replied.

Parks' later years were not without difficult moments.

In 1994, Parks' home was invaded by a 28-year-old black man who kicked down her door, beat her and took $53. The attacker, Joseph Skipper, pleaded guilty, blaming the crime on his drug problem.

Parks lost a 1999 lawsuit that sought to prevent the hip-hop duo OutKast from using her name as the title of a song.

After she lost the suit, lawyer Gregory Reed, who represented Parks, said his client "has once again suffered the pains of exploitation." Another suit against OutKast's record company was settled out of court.

Parks was born Rosa Louise McCauley on Feb. 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Ala. She married Raymond Parks, a barber, in 1932.

At a celebration in her honor in 1988, Rosa Parks said, "I am leaving this legacy to all of you . . . to bring peace, justice, equality, love and a fulfillment of what our lives should be."

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) remembered Parks as a "courageous" woman.

"I truly believe that there's a little bit of Rosa Parks in all Americans who have the courage to say enough is enough and stand up for what they believe in," he said last night. "She did such a small thing, but it was so courageous for her, as a humble person, to do."

With Post Wire Services

If Rosa Parks tried that in China, she would have been killed the next day.

Good point. In the USSR under Father Stalin she would be sent to the gulag. In the more liberal post-Stalinist years she'd be locked up in a psychiatric facility on the assumption that no normal person would go against the norm of the majority.

Kommissar Betty wrote:If Rosa Parks tried that in China, she would have been killed the next day.

...and her family would have been billed for the bullet...

At a celebration in her honor in 1988, Rosa Parks said, "I am leaving this legacy to all of you . . . to bring peace, justice, equality, love and a fulfillment of what our lives should be..."

"...as long as you are black."