Talk:Rosa Parks

Vegetarian

It should be mentioned that Rosa Parks was also a vegetarian. She appears to have been an activist on all fronts. Source: http://vegetarian.about.com/od/vegetarianlifestyle/f/famousveg.htm

Archived

• Archive 1: Opening comments, Outkast, Gordon Parks' sister?, Date of settlement of lawsuit, Middle name, Montgomery Boycott, 382 days, or 381 days?, language..., Jackie Robinson, African-American?, 2005 Deaths, Where did she die?, Front of the bus time Mrs Parks, good info here, Seamstress?, This article is mediocre, Outkast Lawsuit - What is it?, Famous image, The white man, Deletion, When was the photo taken?, New Picture, Lee vs Louise, Does anyone know Rosa's family's address?, Sympathy, Browder v. Gayle, POV, Death and funeral, removed half of lead, News coverage of funeral, Montgomery Bus Boycott Section, Photos of Fingerprints, etc., King County Metro tribute, What is needed to get this article to featured, Vandalism, Ideal or not - nominate already, Metro sticker, Removed section: "Presidential Medal of Freedom Award Ceremony" + Presidential Medal of Freedom Award Ceremony, Which photos to junk, Clarification of 1964 Photo, Main page FA?, Nice Work!, Question, Horrible citation style, Be Nice!, Correction needed, Race, Article decaying before our eyes

Reviewing the last 500 edits

http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Rosa_Parks&diff=34145162&oldid=29717012

There have been almost 500 edits since this entry was on the front page. I am pleased to see that almost every modification helped the article. The writing is stronger, and a glaring lacuna, the legacy of the boycott for movements worldwide (still meager), was filled. I am going to remove the new long quote from her friend. It isn't informative and would be the third quote explaining her motivation.

Lotsofissues 01:06, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

which Peace Prize?

OK, so a quick check at [1] reveals that indeed Rosa Parks did not ever win the Nobel Peace prize. And a Google search [2] comes up with around 150 hits for Rosa Parks Peace Prize. But try to find out anything about this prize and you won't get very far. Most intersting, an article [3] from the New York Times, dated 1994-11-07, states "The organizers of One Day of Peace, a Swedish-American festival, told Mrs. Parks on Friday they were creating the Rosa Parks Peace Prize and would ask her to help in choosing its first winner next year, the 40th anniversary of her historic refusal..."

Can anyone shed any more (verifyable) light on this? Nick Levine 17:02, 22 March 2006 (UTC) Rosa Parks is our Hero

Change racial term

can someone change the "black people" to African American please thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tmac2244 (talk • contribs) 18:16, 3 October 2008 (UTC) She CAn be a Really Good Person

Yet you say nothing about changing the "race" of the white man to Caucasian.

Civil disobedience question

I know this question is probably going to be offensive to some, but I don't mean it that way, and I really would appreciate an answer. The article mentions that there was some thirty minute trial. Now, if there was a trial at all, it seems that would imply that Parks pled not guilty, or in some way contested the punishment. If she pled not guilty, that would imply that she was either claiming 1) that she didn't commit the act she was accused of, or 2) she committed that act, but that act was not illegal. (The third possibility, that she was planning to purely aruge jury nullification isn't mentioned.) Either of those would seem to disqualify it as an act of civil disobedience. In civil disobedience, you non-violently disobey a law you believe to be unjust as a means of resisting that law. I don't think she argued 1), that she "didn't really sit in that bus seat after being ordered to move". If she argued 2), that would disqualify it as an act of civil disobedience. How can you say, "I'm disobeying this law, but what I'm doing isn't really illegal." ? So what exactly happened at the trial? What was there to contest that would be consistent with "civil disobedience" of unjust laws? (Again, apologies if this sounds mean-spirited.) MrVoluntarist 18:37, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I presume her argument was that she was, indeed, violating a law, but the law was unconstitutional. To make such a case, one must enter a not guilty plea. And, certainly, it is considered civil disobedience to refuse to obey a law one considers unconstitutional. - Jmabel | Talk 16:58, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

As the poster above mentioned, you left out a third (or fourth, depends on how you count) option: she believe that in illegal law attempted to make her action illegal. If she had plead guilty, most likely there would have been no trial as the judge would have just accepted the fine proposed by the DA and convicted her. Since she plead not guilty, a trial is necessary which gave her the opportunity to put her story on record. She was still convicted but the record the case produced was important for subsequent cases. sebmol 16:22, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Geordy Richter?

I think someone has vandalized the top of the page.

As you can imagine, this is an often-vandalized article. Usually fixed pretty fast, but you obviously hit it at a moment when it wasn't. - Jmabel | Talk 18:45, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

quotes section

I have removed the section containing the following content:

• "The only thing that bothered me was, that we waited so long to make this protest."

One, it is unsourced and so brief it would be better placed in the text in an appropriate location rather than extending the TOC. Two, it should be at wikiquote in any case, with one of those neat boxes placed here with the others. - BT 15:28, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

"Recalled"

Recently added (indicated here by italics): "she later recalled that she had attended a mass meeting in Montgomery which focused on this case as well as the recent murders of George W. Lee and Lamar Smith." Why "later recalled"? Is there any doubt that she had attended the meeting? This wording tends to suggest that her recall perhaps should not be trusted: otherwise we would simply state it all as fact, as we do most things. - Jmabel | Talk 20:50, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

1943 incident

The description of the first run-in in 1943 with James Blake requires a citation, since it disagrees with other versions. The James F. Blake article suggests that Parks decided not to reboard, whereas this one suggests that he drove off before she could. 70.226.111.52 16:56, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

A very minor honor

Cut from the "Honors and awards" section: "On May 15, 2006, Pascal Obispo's album 'les fleurs du bien' features a song named 'Rosa', tribute to Rosa Parks." I'd have fixed the bad writing if that were all that were wrong with this. Doesn't seem particularly notable (there are many more notable songs about Parks) and I'm not even sure what it means to say that an album features a song on a particular date: so, like, three days later it no longer featured it? - Jmabel | Talk 19:35, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Minor edit: Seamstress

Currently, it says Parks was "an African American seamstress and civil rights activist whom the U.S. Congress dubbed the "Mother of the Modern-Day Civil Rights Movement". I'm swtiching the order so it reads, "Rosa Parks was an African American civil rights activist and seamstress whom the U.S. Congress dubbed the "Mother of the Modern-Day Civil Rights Movement". It seems pretty obvious that she was a civil rights activist first and a seamstress second, regardless of the popular image. I don't see any reason not to make a bold edit. Kennard2 04:08, 29 January 2007 (UTC) ily

Browder vs Gayle...

I was reading this article, when I noticed that at the end of "Browder vs. Gayle" someone added: lol rosa parks is kewl

The comment is extremely out of place, and I was trying to remove it, but I don't log in often enough to be "trusted". Can someone fix that? It really detracts the quality of the article.

Thanks!!

Sultanita 04:37, 10 February 2007 (UTC) Maria

Done. Thanks for pointing it out. Ben Aveling 10:04, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Merge discussion

A discussion on Montgomery Bus Boycott suggests that it should be merged into this article. I think that information on this article, (e.g. "Events leading up to the boycott") should be moved to the boycott page, as it isn't directly about Mrs. Parks. OverMyHead 15:22, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Minor Vandalism

Changed sentence- Parks is famous for her refusal on December 1, 1955 to obey bus driver James Blake's demand that she relinquish her seat to a white man. Too dis-obey bus diver Blake's demand that she relinquish her seat to a white man.--McNoddy 09:01, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

(Correction. She refused to obey, not to disobey--McNoddy 11:11, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Incorrect date

I'm not a registered user, and I wouldn't have any idea how to change this offhand, but I noticed what I believe is an error in this article. The caption to the photograph of Mrs. Parks being fingerprinted by Deputy Lackey lists the date as December 1, 1955. This is almost certainly not correct. A strikingly similar image was published in the February 23, 1956 issue of the New York Times, in which Mrs. Parks is being fingerprinted by the same deputy, and wearing the same suit, as in the photo in this article. This booking was in connection with the mass arrests on illegal boycotting charges of the boycott's leaders, beginning on February 22, 1956. It seems incredible that Mrs. Parks would be printed and booked by the same deputy, while wearing the same suit, on two occasions three months apart. Mrs. Parks explicitly denies, in her autobiography, that the famous photo of her being printed is from the first arrest, as many have thought or asserted. She makes no mention of press attending her first arrest and booking, and why would the press turn out to cover a Negro seamstress getting busted for a misdemeanor? And, as a final bit of evidence, the caption did give February 22, 1956 as the date of the photograph in earlier versions of the article. Someone must, at some point, have helpfully edited the caption without realizing that the photo was from Mrs. Parks' subsequent arrest. 198.45.18.28 18:40, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

This was discussed way back when Mrs. Parks passed away and fixed, but it looks like the inaccuracy crept back in. The NY Times link in that previous discussion states that it is from the 22nd, as well. Thanks for making a note of it. - BanyanTree 05:30, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Apple Computer tribute (25th Oct 2005)

Apple Computer placed a large tribute to Rosa Parks on their homepage on the day after her death, resurrecting their 'Think Different' campaign. Link: http://web.archive.org/web/20051026002259/www.apple.com/ - could/should this be referenced? I admit it's only minor, but may be worth noting.. Garethpeate 21:28, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Image tags for arrest record

There are two images of her arrest record - the first is tagged with "This image may not have the proper copyright or licensing information. An experienced editor should contact the uploader and add the proper tag, or discuss the issue on the talk page."

The second has no such tag and is seemingly fair use Federal government. Why the difference???--Dumarest 20:47, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Honors

• Wasn't Rosa Parks' funeral in Grand Rapids, Michigan? There's a place downtown called Rosa Parks circle. It's an outdoor theater in the urban, artistic area.

There were times when the bus departed...

From the article:

"If white people were already sitting in the front, black people could board to pay the fare, but then had to disembark and reenter through the rear door. There were times when the bus departed before the black customers who had paid made it to the back entrance."

Did this actually ever happen? Does anyone have a citation for this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.130.187.19 (talk) 23:44, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Rosa Parks (Middle School)

Rosa Parke Middle School in Onley, Maryland is the most wellknown School named after Rosa Parks. It is the most well known because it is the only school named after her that she actually visited prior to her passing. Rosa Parks Middle School in Onley, Maryland also is home to some of he worlds smartest students and has a 5 star rateing on the teachers, the facilities, and the students that are involved with the school. --(talk) 00:00, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Earlier Parks - Blake run in

The info on the earlier Parks - Blake run in is somewhat unclear and contradictory. According to the James F. Blake which is supported by the Guardian reference from there she paid, tried to go to her seat but was ordered to get off and reboard at the back which she did at which point he drove off before she could reboard at the back. According to this article, she dropped her purse and sat on a 'white-only' seat while picking it up. This infruated him so much that he drove off without her when she got off to reboard at the back. Of course perhaps both of these happen but it would be best if this could be clarified with further sourcing.Nil Einne 14:17, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

She was sitting then a guy next to her got up and moved. Dhe didn't and so she got arested.75.25.49.218

She is our hero

Communist

Shouldn't there be something in here about how she was a member of the Communist party and had the entire event planned? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.187.4.81 (talk) 23:32, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Despite the popular (and misleading) conception of this action as "spontaneous", it was indeed planned by activists in the community. She attended the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee and had been involved in the Civil Rights Movement for many years prior to this event. I could dig up some sources, but do you have any available? Njfuller (talk) 21:44, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

• This seems like a good resource for correcting some of the myths. Note that it wasn't planned to be deceptive. The popular myths about Parks' refusal to move were the product of later storytellers. --Dystopos (talk) 19:10, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Terrorists

In two places, this article describes politically-motivated criminal violence as "terrorism" or its perpetrators as "terrorists". Wikipedia's Manual of Style recommends against using this word. (See Wikipedia:Words to avoid#Extremist, terrorist and freedom fighter.) Even though the actions described do fit many people's definitions of terrorism, we do have good reasons to prefer more neutral descriptions.

The first case is the sentence, "Some segregationists retaliated with terrorism.". In this instance, substituting ... with violent crime would probably work pretty well, or just ... violently, since it's pretty obvious from the context that the actions are reprehensible violent crimes.

The second sentence is as follows: "However, more violence erupted following the court order, as snipers fired into buses and into King's home, and terrorists threw bombs into churches and into the homes of many church ministers, including Martin Luther King Jr.,'s friend Ralph Abernathy."

Here we see snipers and terrorists, when what's meant is attempted murderers armed with guns and bombs. A sniper is a trained soldier, not any ol' jackass with a rifle. Yes, the word is used casually to mean any distance shooter, but we're an encyclopedia and we should write more precisely than that.

Possibly we could go for something like: "However, more violence erupted following the court order. Gunmen fired into buses and King's home, and bombs were thrown into churches and ..."

Anyway, just a thought. --71.146.45.156 (talk) 09:08, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Photo caption wrong...

My 9 year old daughter, Olivia, just read Rosa's autobiography and caught an error on one of the photo captions in this article. She was very excited to point out to me that the photo of Rosa being fingerprinted wasn't of Rosa being printed immediately following her arrest as the caption intimates, but, rather, it was of Rosa much later, following indictments that were handed down upon discovery by local law enforcement officials of a law against boycotts.

Rosa points out in her autobiography that this photo was incorrectly labled in it's original printing in the Montgomery Advertiser, was then picked up by wire services around the world, and has been commonly mislabled ever since.

So how do we get the photo caption updated? I attempted to edit the caption but this article is frozen. Can anyone help me understand how to get the caption updated to read, "... being fingerprinted following her indictment for organizing the bus boycott"?

Thanks. -Richard and Olivia B. -- Oliviasdad830 (talk) 03:06, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

• I've corrected the caption and added a reference for the photograph's date to the image page. Thanks for the heads up. --Dystopos (talk) 19:07, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Race

Race: IT is ignorant and perhaps insulting to call Rosa Parks an African-American---when she is an American of the highest degree. She is as are other people of color who are US Citizens: American-Black(or "Mulatto" African). The rationale for this is that an African American is someone who lives in South Africa who is from the US, is white , black, oriental et al. and at least since 1700 there are other races on the Continent of Africa besides the Negro race. While we can not speak for Mrs. Parks; I think that she would agree to remove the race issue here and just call her a great American (and if need be 'of color'). However if she prefered as the great Sachmo did ---she could be refered to as a Black American or simply the same of the Negro race. The problem here is complicated because Rosa was really a mulatto of Caucasian Heritage. Liberians who can trace there ancestory to slave households of the United States at the time of the great repatriation of Blacks occured, and the founding of Liberia, could call themselves 'African Americans' but most do not. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.197.125.31 (talk) 20:49, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I've been described as Irish-American all my life. Meaning: an American whose ancestry is Irish or partly Irish. By the same token, Rosa Parks is an African-American, meaning an American whose ancestry is African or partly African. As for "mulatto", that is an unacceptable term, just as "half-breed" and "mongrel" are unacceptable terms. Tom129.93.16.177 (talk) 16:06, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Personal Life

Why isn't there a personal life section for Rosa Parks??? Was she ever married? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.176.16.204 (talk) 10:49, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

yes. she was married. her last name wasn't always "parks". her birth name was Rosa Louise McCauley.<3-16-08>

Getting in trouble

Isn't the photos even right. Isn't she allow to take over white people's seat because her skin don't look too black, or the image we have is not well photo. If she's tan then sitting in white people's seat is not a problem back then?How she get arrst if she's told to only sit i black poeple's seat, because she don't look that black.--Freewayguy ^{Msg USC} 21:40, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

         If there is a Martin Luther King Jr. birthday on the calander there should be one for Rosa Parks.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.164.141.44 (talk) 14:32, 8 February 2009 (UTC) 

Improvements necessary to keep Featured Article status

As with most articles promoted so long ago, this article does not currently meet the Featured article criteria. I would like to work with this article's contributors and the related WikiProjects to bring this article up to the current standards. Please don't take this as an insult to the article, as it is well-written and there shouldn't be a lot of work necessary. The concerns I have at this point are:

1. Verifiability - Much of the article is unreferenced. This included statistics and quotations, both of which need to be cited with reliable sources.
2. Lead section - The lead does not currently summarize all of the key points of the article, and it should be 3 to 4 paragraphs long.
   • I believe I've now addressed this. - Jmabel | Talk 19:14, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
3. Consistent citations - The references are missing important information. At minimum, they should include a title, publisher, url, and accessdate. If a publication date and/or author is listed, this information should be included as well. Wikipedia:Citing sources gives information of how to use the {{cite web}} template, which helps to keep things consistent.
4. Images - Fair use rationales need to be provided for all images that are covered by copyright. In addition, I don't believe that the Montgomery Advertiser picture can be included under Fair Use terms, as the article does not specifically discuss the newspaper itself. Rationales added and newspaper image deleted. GaryColemanFan (talk) 21:01, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

These are the most important things that need some work for now. This is a very important article, viewed by an average of 3,500 people every day, so it would be great to make it as good as possible. I would like to get this up to the current standards without going through a Featured Article review, so any help would be appreciated. Thanks, GaryColemanFan (talk) 20:08, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Does someone want to come up with a way to keep track of which citations might be problematic? I threw in an HTML comment after one that I think was very weak, but I don't imagine that anyone would want me to go heavily through the page doing that. Is there anything that has been used successfully elsewhere? - Jmabel | Talk 01:42, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

One really vague citation:

• "The Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott," Montgomery Advertiser, 2005

I assume it is an article - the Montgomery Advertiser is a daily paper - but the date given is only the year, and there should be either a page number or an online link. 2005 suggests that the occasion might be her death, if someone wants to track this down and clean the citation. - Jmabel | Talk 07:04, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Two footnotes cited to

• "Rosa Parks, 92, Founding Symbol of Civil Rights Movement, Dies," New York Times, October 25 2005

Note that there is neither a page number, nor a URL. I have access to the Times archives online, and that was not the title of her Times obituary, which was a front-page story "Rosa Parks, 92, Intrepid Pioneer Of Civil Rights Movement, Is Dead", continued on page C18. That story does not contain the bulk of the information so cited. Using the "name" feature of the "ref" element, I have renamed this citation "NYT-obit-questionable". If no one can find the piece in question rather soon, we should remove those citations, since they appear to be misleading. - Jmabel | Talk 17:21, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I fixed the New York Times citation by using the online version of the story. GaryColemanFan (talk) 02:37, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

It still seems to me not to cite for any of the material about Browder v. Gayle, Ralph Abernathy, etc. In fact, none of the following terms even appear on that page:

• Browder, Gayle, 301, Abernathy, District Court, Code of Alabama, Fourteenth Amendment, sniper(s)

In short, it simply is not a citation for this material. - Jmabel | Talk 08:04, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have been more clear. The New York Times citation covers only the last sentence (bombings of houses in response to the boycott). The book source that accompanies it discusses the bombing of Abernathy's house. The rest of the paragraph still needs to be cited, so we will still have to work backward and cite the rest of the information. Incidentally, thanks for all of your help. It's greatly appreciated. GaryColemanFan (talk) 21:46, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I suspect that if we are to get this back up to proper FA criteria someone - and it won't be me, I don't have the time - needs to sit down with one or another print biography (preferably more than one) and cite for the bulk of the article. - Jmabel | Talk 18:45, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

My assessment of citations

I've made at least a quick pass through the citations. I've added access dates for most online citations, and referred to the Internet Archive for several that are no longer up.

A little more than half of the article lacks inline citations. As I note in the previous section, at least a few of the citations provided are very weak (not particularly reliable sources), and at least one simply does not contain the information for which it claims to cite.

Since no one else has proposed a plan for dealing with discussing the citations, I'm going to add a "name" attribute to every "ref" element, even if it's only used once, so that we have an easy way to refer to each citation in discussing them.

On the whole, the "references" section doesn't seem very useful. Most of this (maybe all, I haven't checked carefully) is redundant to the notes. The references listed don't seem particularly authoritative. Some are not very clear (e.g. those that refer to an access date, but don't give a URL.) I leave it to someone else to sort out whether any or all of this section is worth keeping.

The short of it: there is a long way to go. - Jmabel | Talk 20:04, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

A particularly weird inclusion in the references:

• John Safran's Musical Jamboree

No idea what it is; nothing cited from it. Unless someone can flesh this out usefully, we should remove it. - Jmabel | Talk 06:07, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

It's a TV show by John Safran - John Safran's Music Jamboree. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 06:10, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

And how is it a reference for this article?? - Jmabel | Talk 18:51, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

More specifically (people should feel free to add to this table, but please sign comments):

citation	issues	action taken
blackindians	This appears to be an ad, and it's totally unclear why this site should be at all authoritative. - Jmabel | Talk 07:03, 6 July 2008 (UTC)	Reference removed per WP:RS. - Jmabel | Talk 00:22, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
jamesdwithrow	Appears to be a hobbyist site - Jmabel | Talk 07:03, 6 July 2008 (UTC)	Reference removed per WP:RS. - Jmabel | Talk 00:22, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
autobiography1	Cites a book, no page number - Jmabel | Talk 07:03, 6 July 2008 (UTC)	Now has page number, OK
Montgomery-Advertiser	Appears to cite a newspaper article, but gives only a year: no author name, no URL, no date & page. - Jmabel | Talk 07:03, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
NYT1	As discussed above, does not seem to contain the info it claims to cite for (Section 301, etc.)- Jmabel | Talk 07:03, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
Free-Press-assailant	Cites newspaper article. Gives date but no author name, no URL, no date & page. - Jmabel | Talk 07:03, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
Chronicle-prison-term	Cites newspaper article. Gives date but no author name, no URL, no date & page. - Jmabel | Talk 07:03, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
AP-2004-12-4	Cites an Associated Press story, but no URL or other way to find it. - Jmabel | Talk 07:03, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
AP-2005-01-13	Cites an Associated Press story, but no URL or other way to find it. - Jmabel | Talk 07:03, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
"Peace Abbey"	Why is this honor from a this group notable? I'm sure they are an accurate citation for their own views, but there seems to me to be a problem here at the intersection of reliable sources & notability. - Jmabel | Talk	Rm material, seems non-notable. - Jmabel | Talk 00:22, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
Ssuna Ambrose Allan	An OK source, but not very good for what it's citing. Doesn't indicate the occasion of Mandela's remark. Doesn't say anything about Parks being a last-minute inclusion.
John Safran's Music Jamboree	In "references" section, no idea what it could be a reference for.	Rm reference as irrelevant. - Jmabel | Talk 00:22, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for doing this. It makes it a lot easier to see where the issues are. I added a page number to the "autobiography" citation, so I crossed it off. GaryColemanFan (talk) 15:04, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Since no one has been working on this lately, I'm taking the liberty of dealing with some of this myself. See "action taken" in table above. - Jmabel | Talk 00:22, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, no one seems to be actively working on finding citations for the article. In the 3 weeks since I assessed the state of the citations, there have been no significant changes to the article, just a bunch of vandalism & reversion. - Jmabel | Talk 05:03, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

The Peace Abbey

I've never heard of The Peace Abbey. Wikipedia does not have an article on it. What makes it notable enough to be worth mentioning and citing? - Jmabel | Talk 20:05, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

No one responded, I've removed this. - Jmabel | Talk 00:25, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Martin Luther King Jr. Award

The Martin Luther King Jr. Award she won in 1980: what award precisely is this? The Fellowship of Reconciliation have a Martin Luther King Jr. Award, but she never won that. I assume this is legitimate, because I see it in a lot of reasonably reliable sources about her, but none of them I can find make matters any clearer. - Jmabel | Talk 05:39, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

A possible source

Rosa Louise Parks Biography at rosaparks.org. Would people consider this a reliable source? It mentions several things we need cited. - Jmabel | Talk 05:54, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Date of onset of dementia

We currently say, without citation, "Rosa Parks resided in Detroit until she died at the age of ninety-two on October 24, 2005, about 19:00 EDT, in her apartment on the east side of the city. She had been diagnosed the previous year with progressive dementia." However, CNN said in 2005 before her death that she "has suffered from dementia since 2002." Is there any basis for "the previous year" (meaning 2004)? - Jmabel | Talk 06:13, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Her Infobox

I realized, and tryed to set her infobox at a more appropriate and specific one as Infobox activist, instead of the Infobox person it is set at, but there is no Infobox activist that has been created yet. I think they should create and Infobox Activist to be more specific to the details of Activists. 20yearoldboyfromNY (talk) 20:33, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

{{editsemiprotected}} In the second to last paragraph of the section titled, "Montgomery Bus Boycott," Dr. Martin Luther King is quoted as writing:

He also stated, Actually, no one can understand the action of Mrs. Parks unless he realizes that eventually the cup of endurance runs over, and the human personality cries out, 'I can take it no longer.'"

For clarity and correct punctuation, I suggest a quotation mark (") be entered before the word, "Actually," to properly mark the quote by Dr. King. The corrected text would look like this:

He also stated, "Actually, no one can understand the action of Mrs. Parks unless he realizes that eventually the cup of endurance runs over, and the human personality cries out, 'I can take it no longer.'"

Regards,

Jonathan —Preceding unsigned comment added by Spirituallyinsane (talk • contribs) 06:17, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

This has been fixed. Thanks! --DA Skunk - (talk) 04:25, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Lying in state

It says

"Parks eventually received many honors ranging from the 1979 Spingarn Medal to the Congressional Gold Medal, a posthumous statue in the United States Capitol's National Statuary Hall, and the posthumous honor of lying in state at the Capitol Rotunda."

But according to the Wiki page on 'lying in state', Rosa Parks was actually only given the honor of 'lying in honor'. Clearly the two disagree, so maybe this one is wrong.

Fixed and sourced. Thank you. - NuclearWarfare ^{contact me}_{My work} 16:12, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

To Tell the Truth TV Appearance

RP's appearance on To Tell the Truth needs work: first of all, as basically a trivia point, it does not belong in the introductory section; secondly, as phrased it really doesn't make sense- to wit, Nipsy Russell recused himself because he was on the panel? Something seems to have been dropped. CFLeon (talk) 22:44, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

It was her choice--170.211.244.6 (talk) 21:16, 13 January 2009 (UTC)--170.211.244.6 (talk) 21:16, 13 January 2009 (UTC)Small Text

I have removed the text referred to above because it is total non-sequiter where it was placed in the lead. If it merits remaining in the article as more than trivia it should be rewritten and placed in the appropriate section in the body of the article. (note I have added ":" to the wiki refs)

• She also appeared on an episode of the 1980 (Robin Ward) version of the game show To Tell The Truth. Only two of the four celebrities were able to identify her. One of the panelists Nipsey Russell disqualified himself and didn't vote because he already knew which one was the real Rosa Parks because he was one of the performers back then. After her imposters were identified Robin Ward said that it was a great honor to have her on the show and wished her success throughout her life.

BTW, I don't think the OutKast reference should be in the lead either (the lead should summarize the aspects of her life that make her notable etc.) but since there is a 5 paragraph sub-section on the case it would take a "real" editor of this page to resolve the merits. RCEberwein | Talk 01:35, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree> The TV appearance doesn't need to be in the lead, and probably isn't even worth having in the article except as trivia.--SouthernNights (talk) 21:49, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

deny Sinebot

Would anyone mind if Sinebot was denied from this talk page? It seems to be hiding about 10 pieces of vandalism for every one good-faith comment by an anonymous user. - BanyanTree 23:16, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Taking silence as assent, done. - BanyanTree 02:09, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

File: Rosaparks busdiagram.jpg

3/17/2009

Can someone please remove the inappropriate comment about Ms. Rosa Parks under: File: Rosaparks busdiagram.jpg? It can be found directly under the bus diagram picture or just before the Licensing section.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rosaparks_busdiagram.jpg

With all due respect,

Thank you

Thank you for pointing this out. It has been removed. rkmlai (talk) 13:19, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Posthumous pardon

I believe the article should mention the Rosa Parks Act and the matter of Parks' own (posthumous!) pardon – [4]. JN466 15:51, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Reference to Hate Group Publication

References included reference to "Shots Fired: Sam Francis on America's Culture War (Vienna, Virginia: Fitzgerald Griffin Foundation Books, 2006), pp. 162–164." Fitzgerald Griffin Foundation is listed as a hate group at http://www.splcenter.org/intel/map/hate.jsp and Sam Francis is listed in Wikipedia as "an anti-capitalist paleoconservative columnist, nationally syndicated in America, known for his racialist views." Fixed. Basilwhite (talk) 11:48, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

While that may be true, I fail to see how it is relevant. We're not in the habit of deleting references because they may be personally distasteful to someone. Doc Tropics 13:50, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

It's not a reference to information about Rosa Parks, it's just a link to hate speech. I found several other links to "Shots Fired" on other pages for American civil rights leaders. Basilwhite (talk) 17:02, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree and have removed the listing. Since there are any number of books that have a few pages on Rosa Parks, it is inappropriate to zero in on this one book for "further reading". Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 17:15, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Children

Does she have any children

Citations needed

Citations are needed for this article. If they are not supplied, this article could be delisted from FA status! WhisperToMe (talk) 18:27, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

I see quite a few. Where is the problem? futurebird (talk) 04:37, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Standards for featured articles tend to get more strict over some time. It appears when this article passed, some of the sources used are below the standard for what would be required now. This is not a cause for an WP:FAR, but to improve the article, I would recommend the following if this article went to FAC today:

• Replace the cite for about.com immediately
• Format all citations in a consistent cite style
• Separate book sources and article/news story sources in a References and Bibliography section
• The article is dependent upon The New York Times for a significant amount of material. Diversify this.
• Use book sources about The Montgomery Bus Boycott and Parks' participation in the Civil Rights Movement: Rosa Parks by David Brinkley, and two Parks autobiographies to begin with.

I hope these suggestions are helpful. --Moni3 (talk) 19:40, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

rosa park was a very good woman