Rosa Parks helped kindle the flame of the civil rights movement, therefore benefiting her people, her country, and the whole world. The Crystal Cathedral Ministries presents the prestigious "Scars into Stars award" to honor her accomplishment in fighting with the enforced racial segregation.
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RHS: Robert Harold Schuller
RP: Rosa Parks

RHS:
I have had the honor of many great and famous powerful people from around the world worship with us, but no one did I ever look down in the pew on with greater joy than a few weeks ago when you worshipped with us for the first time. And Rosa Parks is a living legend.

RP:
Thank you very much, Dr. Schuller and to this wonderful congregation. I’m very happy to be here today and I’m glad the Lord has spared me to be in your presence and to live as long as I have and to be able to see the blessings of God as He has brought many of us and my story that people have taken such great note of and have given me so much praise for, begin December 1, 1955 in Montgomery Alabama, a Thursday evening after I had left my job, where I was employed as a tailor’s assistant in the Montgomery Fed Department Store. I boarded a bus, almost at about 6:00 with the intention of going home and taking care of a lot of matters that I had to look after. I saw one vacant seat just back of where the white passengers were sitting. The back of the bus in the isle was filled with blacks and there were a few vacant seats in the very front on the second or third stop after I boarded the bus, the front of the bus filled and there was one white man, a passenger left standing. The driver asked four of us; a man who shared the seat with me and two women across the aisle to let him have those seats in order for this one man to sit down, leaving the other seats vacant and four people standing. And when the others stood rather reluctantly on his second demand, he said ‘ya’ll make it light on yourselves and let me have those seats.’ And when I remained seated he said he was going to have me arrested and I just told him that he may do that. I did not have any intention of standing.

I felt that we had endured this type of humiliation too long so I faced arrest and was placed under arrest and escorted off the bus by two policemen and was taken to jail and I wanted the persons involved to know and all of us who were living under the yoke of legally enforced racial segregation to know that it was wrong and we, as a people should not have to pay the same price and yet be deprived of the accommodations of a seat on a common carrier. And that is in brief my story.

RHS:
They took you to jail.

RP:
Yes, I was arrested. And that’s not a very good feeling to know when the door was locked behind you, that you’ll never get out until somebody else turns the key. It’s not the best feeling but I’m grateful that I was calm enough to accept this without going to pieces over that and this all the time so they could not charge me with that. They only charged me with violating the legal segregation law and transportation in Montgomery Alabama.

The people in Montgomery on the Monday, December 5th when my trial came up and of course I was found guilty, they demonstrated by remaining off the buses by the thousands and on Monday evening, at the Holt Street Baptist Church, where there was a large congregation in the church and outside of church people were standing in great numbers and the address of Dr. Martin Luther King ended with the request to know who would be willing to remain off the buses until changes were made and our requests for better treatment were met. And the vote was completely unanimous everywhere. And of course we went from that day on till December the 21st, 381 days later, off the buses through many trials. There were many arrests made and there was some bombings and much intimidation, but the more the powers that be, the officials and the segregationists, were determined to make us return to the buses without any changes, the more determined we were to remain off. And we were a very unified people during that time and we were determined and unafraid to face whatever opposition we had to.

RHS:
Your faith: where did you get your beautiful faith in the Lord?

RP:
Well as a very small child, going to church as soon as I.. even before I could remember, a member of the African Methodist Church, I was just brought up to believe in freedom and equality and that God desires all His children to be free.

RHS:
When did the theme “We Shall Overcome.” That was the marshal music that behind the whole civil rights movement. Do you remember the first time you heard that song?

RP:
The first time I heard it was, actually the first time I heard the song was when I was a small child and my mother sang it. It was a little different then, but it has changed over the years. And the next time I heard it in our movement was in the 1950’s and it became just the theme song for all freedom loving people.

RHS:
All over the world and the Berlin wall fell and Eastern Europe is finding democracy and freedom and all to the tune of “We Shall Overcome.” So Rosa, when you sat on that bus, you started a wave of freedom that would go around the world and because of that today, it’s my honor to present to you the Scars into Stars Award. We have presented this over the past fifteen years to only a few people. First to Art Linkletter, whose daughter committed suicide under drugs and he turned his pain into fighting drugs. Then we presented it to David Rothenberg, who was burned by his father and has recovered enough to turn his scars into stars. Della Reese and the last person before you was Coretta Scott King and today, you add this small but prestigious company and this plaque says “The Crystal Cathedral Ministries presents the Scars into Stars award to Rosa Parks, whose God given sense of dignity and self worth gave her the courage to take a quiet step of freedom and help kindle the flame of the civil rights movement, therefore benefiting her people, her country and today we can say, the whole world.” Rosa Parks, God bless you.

RP:
Thank you very, very much. Thank you.