Wednesday, October 26, 2005
She said those who had the privilege but didn't use it should be ashamed.
YOUNGSTOWN -- Two years after refusing to give her seat to a white man on a Montgomery city bus, Rosa Parks paid a visit to this city to try to get more blacks to the voting booths.
Parks stood in Holy Trinity Baptist Church on the city's South Side in September 1957 during "Good Citizenship Week" in front of a crowd of 500 spectators and spoke out to those blacks who had the right to vote yet did not take the time to do so.
She called the failure of Northern blacks to take full advantage of their voting privilege both lamentable and appalling.
Parks spoke about the struggle of blacks in the South to vote at that time. She also urged blacks to encourage their children to become qualified voters.
"The Negro in the North who can vote and fails to do so should hang his head in shame, because in the South, Negroes are willing to give their lives so that their future generations may become first-class citizens," she said.
Parks outlined pressures placed on blacks to keep them from voting in the South. She also named a number of blacks who suffered persecution after trying to vote.