More than half a century after US civil rights icon Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white man, the Alabama legislature yesterday voted to pardon her and others convicted for breaking segregation-era race laws.
The "Rosa Parks Act," approved unanimously by the state House of Representatives but opposed by three senators in the Senate, also clears the way for hundreds of other activists to wipe out their arrest records for acts of civil disobedience in the struggle for black civil rights.
The Alabama Senate revised the act to allow museums to continue to display such arrest records as well as a famous mug shot of Parks, who died last October at the age of 92.
"It is long overdue," said Thad McClammy, a Democrat who sponsored the House bill. "It will bring closure."
Hundreds of people accrued arrest records in Alabama during the turbulent civil rights struggle, which was galvanized by Parks' simple act of disobedience on December 1, 1955 in Montgomery.
Her arrest for refusing to give up her seat sparked a 381-day boycott by black residents of the bus system.
Led by Rev. Martin Luther King, then a little-known preacher, the boycott led to Supreme Court rulings forcing Montgomery to desegregate its transport system and ultimately helped end laws that separated blacks and whites in public facilities across the South.
"Mrs. Parks sat down to stand up for justice," said Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, a leader in the Birmingham civil rights movement, who was arrested more than 30 times.