Celebrate Rosa Parks Day ~ State of California and beyond...

On February 4, 1913 Rosa Louise McCauley Parks was born of the “Red Clay” from the State of Alabama, “Roll Tide, Roll.”

On Monday, February 6, 2012, Noon, on the West Steps of the California State Capitol, our 12th Annual, Rosa Parks Day Celebration ~ U.N. International Year for Cooperatives begins preparation for our Gala Centennial Celebration of the Life of Rosa Parks, Monday, February 4, 2013.

Beginning February 2000, official recognition of Rosa Parks Day in California was championed by then California Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson, today Los Angeles President of the City Council, we celebrate and honor his visionary leadership.
Inter-modal transportation systems throughout the entire State of California is the backbone of the 9th largest economy on earth.

This U.N. International Year of Cooperatives, we continue to build support towards achieving equity and equality opportunity throughout our California Transportation systems, while working cooperatively throughout the world.

In the tradition of Rosa Parks, we are proud to share our extended Black Agriculture heritage that connects Classical African Civilization, through the Black Warrior River Basin of Alabama to the Central Valley of California, “the Greatest Garden in the World” resting firmly upon her African Methodist Episcopalian faith in the creator of all things.

Rosa Louise McCauley was greatly influenced by her parents Leona and James McCauley and her grandparents Rose and Sylvester Edwards who helped stabilize the young family in the difficult days of "Jim Crow laws" that allowed terrorism of people of African descent throughout America.

Rosa's mother was a schoolteacher who taught "Ag in the classroom" and cultivated her favorite vegetables broccoli, collard greens, sweet potatoes and string beans in the “family kitchen garden” just outside of Tuskegee, Alabama.

The origins of the name Alabama comes from a rough translation "herb gathers" from indigenous languages in the Tombigbee River Basin, Black Warrior River Valley, Alabama, part of a larger ancient civilization of "Mound Builders," reaching back well over 5000 years of ancient civilization within Washitaw Proper.

The broader Mississippi River Basin became part of the "Louisiana Purchase," nearly 1/3 of the entire continental United States, acquired in 1803 from the Emperor of the French, Napoleon Bonaparte, who was given authorization to the land claim by Spanish authority.

After fall of the Spanish Port at Mobile Bay in 1814, the path toward becoming a U.S. territory and later the State of Alabama, affectionately known as the “Heart of Dixie,: was ratified by the U.S. Congress in 1819, our 23rd State.

In 1823, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision which stated that "Indians" could occupy lands within the United States, but could not hold title to those lands, only white men could hold U.S. title to land in most of America.

This is the legal foundation and ongoing belief fundamental disenfranchisement of Indigenous populations and people of African Descent to retain vast acres of land throughout the United States of America, continues today, by 1830, President Andrew Jackson established an official U.S government policy called the "Indian Removal Act."

Indigenous populations and people of African descent continue to call it the "Trail of Tears and Death" a forced removal from the land and destruction of cultural ways, many were relocated to the Oklahoma Territory.

While taking ancestral lands and establishing "King Cotton" on the back of enslaved human beings, destroying ancient civilizations of antiquity, U.S. Agriculture industries flourished as our nation slipped into Civil War.

Jefferson Davis, a West Point Graduate, Mississippi Senator and a U.S. Secretary of War, was elected President of the Confederate States of America and fought bravely to retain slavery throughout the land.

Today, members of Congress marks the Sesquicentennial of creation of the United States Department of Agriculture and the Sesquicentennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, as we prepare for the Centennial of the Birth of Rosa Parks.

Montgomery, Alabama, original capital of the Confederate States of America, was the site of Rosa Parks’ date with eternity, the Omen’s Political Caucus first supported and organized the Montgomery Bus Boycott, by mobilizing community action, NAACP support and nurturing a 26 year old new minister, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Together, after over a year of successful boycotts and expert legal challenges, they changed the world and renewed the promise and intent of the “Founding Fathers of the United States of America.”

Earlier, the historic Tuskegee Institute Airman, trained at nearby Maxwell Air Force Base to facilitate integration of air transportation systems during World War II, greatly assisted by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and now seen through the eye of Hollywood, in the coming feature film "Red Tails." A cooperative U.S. Transportation is essential to maintaining our leading place in Global Commerce, starting from the Red Clay of Alabama.

Many were reminded by President Barack Obama on Inauguration Day and California and U.S. Transportation officials are beginning to recognize Rosa Parks Day and the broader contributions of People of African Descent to the inter-modal transportation systems essential to sustain our broader U.S. Trade and Commerce objectives.

2012 Rosa Parks Day in California, we pause to reflect upon our United Nations "International Year for Cooperatives... a Tribute to Dear Rosa" and remember her example of faith and courage this special season of new beginnings.