UNH Celebrates Rosa Parks and Civil Rights Movement
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UNH Honors Rosa Parks
The Office of Diversity Initiatives hosted a celebration honoring the 50th year of the Civil Rights Movement with a tribute t o the life of Rosa Parks. Small group discussions brought out key points about the history and the challenges to freedom today. Wanda Mitchell, Vice Provost for Diversity, addressed the group saying, “Rosa Parks was a woman of action and conviction. She knew her rights were being denied, and she did all she could to deny the injustice. We have to be champions for change. Never give in to status quo Take action, like the civil rights leaders did. “
Most historians date the beginning of the modern Civil Rights Movement in the United States to December 1, 1955.That was the day when Rosa Parks of Montgomery, Alabama, refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger. She was arrested and fined for violating a city ordinance, but her lonely act of defiance began a movement that ended legal segregation in North America. Today, she is an inspiration to freedom-loving people everywhere.
Speakers and facilitators at the dialogue café tables included Richard Haynes, Bruce Mallory, Rev. Larry Brickner-Wood, Valerie Cunningham, Michele Holt-Shannon, Becca Cyr, Alexandra Cornelius-Diallo, Irene Kao, Jessica Stevens, Donna Marie Sorrentino, Elizabeth Finkel, Judy Spiller, Kristen Klein-Cechettini, and Todd DeMitchell.
Durham's U.S. Postal Service attended the event to present the stamp poster To Form a More Perfect Union, a pictorial history of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States was presented to Bruce Mallory, to be displayed in the Provost's Office in Thompson Hall.
Mitchell commented after the program, “When people talk about New Hampshire, they speak about how homogeneous it is, but this is changing. The most impor tant thing to remember is to help continue fighting prejudice. Ordinary people can do extraordinary things.”
The film of the Rosa Parks story, Standing on the Shoulders of My Sisters, is available on loan from the library at the President's Commission on the Status of People of Color by calling 862.1058 or contacting us through our web site at http://www.unh.edu/cspc/
