Rosa Parks Centennial Celebration ~ Washington D.C.

Sacramento, CA ~ Our official kick-off for Rosa Parks Centennial Celebration will begin on Friday, February 1, 2013 at the California State Capitol, our Rosa Parks Day Celebration will honor regional community youth who demonstrate the faith and courage of Rosa Parks.

We travel to San Francisco and enjoy the City by the Bay preparing to travel to Washington D.C.

On Sunday, February 3, 2013, globally, we join special prayers for Rosa Parks to help guide a world in need of a softer, gentle touch that stops the violence, globally. We may watch a little football from New Orleans... maybe.

On Monday, February 4, 2013, Rosa Parks Day, we join official celebrations at the US Capitol and Westin Washington DC City Center in a global conversation honoring the 100th Birthday, Wine, Chocolate, Roses and Fine Cuisine celebrating Rosa Parks.

We are proud to share our extended family heritage through the legacy of Rosa Parks that connects Classical African Civilization to the Black Warrior River Basin of Alabama, to the Central Valley of California, “the Greatest Garden in the World” and our nation’s Capitol.

Rosa Louise McCauley was greatly influenced by her parents Leona and James McCauley, her grandparents Rose and Sylvester Edwards helped stabilize the young family in the difficult days of the "Jim Crow" south where terrorism of Black people was a common and accepted practice.

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 name Alabama comes from a rough translation of "herb gathers" from the indigenous language of our Black Warrior River Valley, part of a larger civilization of "Mound Builders," reaching back well over 5000 years ago, Washitaw Proper.

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

After the capture of the Spanish Port at Mobile Bay, in 1814, the path to become a U.S. State of Alabama, still known affectionately as the “heart of dixie,” was ratified by the U.S. Congress in 1819, the 23rd State.

The U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision in 1823 which stated that Indians could occupy lands within the United States, but could not hold title to those lands. Thus only white men could hold U.S. title to land in America. This is the legal foundation and ongoing belief fundamental to Native American and people of African Descent Land Loss throughout the United States of America.

In 1830, President Andrew Jackson established an official U.S government policy called the "Indian Removal Act." Indigenous populations continue to call it the "Trail of Tears and Death." Taking ancestral lands and establishing "King Cotton" on the back of enslaved human beings, destroying ancient civilizations of antiquity is a conversation for this special year for people of African descent.

Jefferson Davis, a West Point Graduate, Mississippi Senator and a U.S. Secretary of War, was elected President of the Confederate States of America. Montgomery, Alabama, original capital of the Confederate States of America, was the site of Rosa Parks’ singular action, supported by the yearlong Montgomery Bus Boycott, organized and mobilized by 40,000 strong community action that changed the world.

Earlier the historic Tuskegee Institute Airman, trained at nearby Maxwell Air Force Base to facilitate integration of air transportation during World War II, greatly assisted by Eleanor Roosevelt, provided an ongoing source of inspiration for Rosa Parks.

Many were reminded by President Barack Obama during his first Inauguration Day and U.S. Transportation officials are beginning to recognize Rosa Parks Day and the broader contributions of People of African Descent to the various intermodal transportation systems essential to sustain our broader U.S. Trade and Commerce objectives as well as essential clean and green public transportation to our daily lives.

2013 Rosa Parks Day in Washington D.C., we will pause to reflect upon a great American story and remember her faith and courage that changed the world, her statue in our Nation's Capitol is on the way....