LAFAYETTE, La. — Community members gathered at the Rosa Parks Transportation Center today to commemorate the civil rights icon whose courageous act of defiance helped reshape the fight for racial justice in America.
"Keep fighting. No matter what, no matter how, keep it in the back of your mind that this is necessary," said Porsha Evans.
Rosa Parks was a civil rights activist whose arrest helped spark the Montgomery Bus Boycott, protests focused on the injustice of racial segregation in Alabama's public transit system.
"Rosa did not take a seat and choose to get out of her seat because she was physically tired. It was about her being tired of injustice," Lafayette City Councilman Kenneth Boudreaux said during the ceremony.
Evans said she remembers those dark times well.
"These were times back in my day I grew up with the Rosa Parks story, and I know what it means to a lot of people when she was told to exit that seat on that bus it was just unbelievable," Evans said.
Forrest Chaisson with 100 Black Men said every person deserves equality and emphasized the importance of standing up against injustice.
"It doesn't matter what shape, size, or color you come in. When something is wrong you have to stand up and speak out against it because we have to live by what the Constitution says that all men and all people are created equal," he said.
Evans recalled her own childhood experiences with segregation.
"Back then I walked into a bus station with my grandma and there was a sign that said 'colored,' and I was little girl and I said, 'What color grandma? What color grandma?' And there was signs all over that said 'colored,'" Evans said.
Evans reminded us that speaking out against injustice remains as important today as it was during Parks' era.
"Standing up for our rights — our unalienable rights. There is a lot of things going on nowadays and we are still amazingly put in a position where we still have to stand up," Evans said.
Parks continues to remind us that standing up to injustice and advocating for our rights can indeed change the course of history.
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