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Ty Davis 0:10
Good morning. Now that we've gotten to know each other a little bit better, we'll get started. My name is Ty Davis and I am honored to greet you this morning. We appreciate your willingness to gather and community and honor of the homecoming of a famous American, Miss Rosa Luois McCauley Parks, the mother of the civil rights movement. And now please stand as professors John Kramer and Eric Stellrecht lead our community and the singing of our National Anthem.

John Kramer 0:38
[Singing] Oh say can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
O'er the ramparts we watch'd were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there,
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Speaker 1 2:11
Great morning. Great morning. I make use of the word great because on this day, it is truly an honor and privilege to pay tribute to a great and phenomenal woman. Miss Rosa Parks. Today, ladies and gentlemen, imagine imagine being denied the right to vote. Imagine being denied the opportunity for quality education being denied their freedom of speech or being denied and even being forced to give up your seat. Miss Rosa Parks sat down to take a stand. Sometimes we forget about our freedom, our freedom to take a seat our freedom of speech to provide an active voice followed by actions. My task before you today is to provide the welcome let us all welcome the struggles. Let us all continue to welcome the obstacles let us all continue to welcome the challenges that symbolizes the life and legacy of Miss Rosa Parks on behalf of the student body of East Carolina University, Faculty and Staff guest Chancelor and his executive council and the Board of Trustees. I provide welcome to you all thank you.

Choir 4:09
Lift every voice and sing,
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the list'ning skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won. Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chast'ning rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died; Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed? We have come over a way that with tears has been watered.
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered. Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast. God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way; Thou who hast by Thy might,
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand,
True to our God,
True to our native land. True to our God,
True to our native land.

Mark Sumner 8:43
When I was asked to make a few brief remarks at this very special occasion to honor one of America's outstanding women, Rosa Parks. I was reminded by Dr. McKee that I have only one minute and 19 seconds. At first I was concerned about the time limit because I have a lot to say personally about the Civil Rights Movement and people who have made a difference. Over the course of the past 15 months we have heard the chancellor talk about getting the right people on the bus. Rosa Parks a quiet soft spoken and diplomatic woman is a great example of having the right people at the right time on the bus and in the right seat. The train of thought is that when you have the right people on the bus, things happen. Rosa Parks was without doubt the right people on the bus. Rosa Parks sat down because she needed to take a stand not just for herself, but for a significant cause. She then stood up When it was time to make a statement about the injustices in her community and in America, and finally, like Rosa Parks, each of us has a reservation without the privilege of cancellation with our own personal maker. Therefore, it is critically important that the dash in our lives between birth and death makes a positive statement about what we sit down for, and what we stand up for. I join the faculty, staff and students and celebrating the remarkable life and achievements of Rosa Parks. Mrs. Parks was a courageous leader who changed our nation for the better during the 20th century. Some faculty and staff recall the national events that followed December 1, 1955, when Miss parks, an African American citizen, chose to break the law and refuse to give up her seat to a white male citizen on a bus in a racially segregated Montgomery, Alabama. Many of our current students have cited her life and legacy as an example of our national ongoing struggle to overcome the legacies of racial intolerance and our nation. Ms. Park's decision began a chain of historical events that helped many of us reexamine our commitment to democracy and to explore the critical role of social justice and building an inclusive community. Democracy is hard work. It is truly not easy. And it truly brings about criticism. Leaders like Rosa Parks, give us hope and courage. the life and legacy of this valiant spirit woman reminds us that we must continue to work hard and forever be vigilant and our individual and collective quest to realize the democratic promise of America. Thank you for being here today, and for helping to keep the dream alive.

Regina Nixon 12:26
Good afternoon. My name is Regina Nixon and I am the current president of the theta alpha chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated. Rosa Parks, the mother of the civil rights movement was one of the most important citizens of the 20th century. Mrs. Parks was a centrist in Montgomery, Alabama, when in December of 1955, she refused to give up her seat on a city bus to a white passenger. The bus driver had her arrested, she was tried and convicted of violating a local ordinance. Her act sparked a citywide boycott of the bus system by blacks that lasted more than a year. The boycott raised an unknown clergyman named Martin Luther King Jr. to national prominence and resulted in the US Supreme Court decision outlined segregation on city buses. Over the next four decades, she helped make her fellow Americans are aware of the history of the civil rights struggle. This pioneer in the struggle for racial equality was the recipient of innumerable honors, including the Martin Luther King Jr. Nonviolent Peace Prize, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Her example remains an inspiration to freedom loving people everywhere. She was initiated into the lovely sorority of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated as an honorary member in 1986. For her prominent role in the civil rights movement. Rosa Parks will be forever remembered and cherished for her courageous acts during the Civil Rights Movement. Thank you.

Bill Hardy 13:54
On behalf of the mayor and city council of Greenville, I bring greetings and like to say thank you, for East Carolina for holding the service today. Rosa Parks, a beautiful name. A picture of Rosa Parks hung on my office wall for many years. It was a reminder of two important gifts she gave us. First, she taught us what one person can do to make things right. Rosa Parks did what she did on December the first 1955 because she believed it was the right thing to do for herself. She had paid the same fare like all others who boarded the bus that day. And when she and three others were asked to vacate their seats to allow a white man to sit down. She said no. But with no knowledge of how far reaching that bow decision was that day. Rosa Parks helped make things right for 1000s of her brothers and sisters and for all Americans. She had it right both ways she was right in her decision not to vacate her seat and she was right in believing that she had a responsibility to do what she as one person could do. But a second important gift Rosa Parks gay that day was a reflective mirror for us as the white majority to see how things really were. And it was a most vivid and clear picture, a picture that challenged and helped us to free ourselves from our own slavery, of racial prejudice. And so today on this campus, we celebrate the contributions of Rosa park, to our community of Greenville and to the nation. To you, Rosa Parks I say thank you for being that bold, genuine and humble servant of our Creator who beckons each one of us to do what is right.

Petra Ross 15:54
I'm honored to be here this afternoon to represent the faculty of East Carolina University. In grade school, many of my generation learned that Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus because her feet were tired. Perhaps her feet were tired. But we now know that it was not any physical tiredness that led her to this act of civil disobedience, this act that kindled the flame of the civil rights movement. It was weariness, weariness of the ignorance of those who denied her the basic rights we all deserve, and impatience, impatience with the political and social system that failed to recognize the dignity of all people. Rosa Parks had the courage to sit and by sitting to take a stand for herself, for her race and for all decent people. So what does her courage say to us, the members of this university community, Rosa Parks changed everything for us. She showed us that it is our duty to stand up for what is right, even to engage in acts of civil disobedience when they're necessary to protect and preserve the dignity of ourselves and the dignity of others. And still, today, we're surrounded by indignities by abused rights by ignored needs. Although we're a multiracial community, and we involve ourselves in the nearly infinite range of human activity, most of us live under a virtual white veil. Too many of us think that racism doesn't affect us because we are not people of color. Too many of us do not recognize whiteness as a racial identity. We are living in denial, surrounded by unacknowledged white privilege. White privilege, as it was described by Peggy McIntosh is an invisible weightless knapsack, a bag of special provisions of maps, passports, codebooks, VSAs, clothes, tools, even blank checks. To continue the work of Rosa Parks and her contemporaries, we must remove this veil of white privilege. It is time for us to all stand together, equally privileged and realize the full potential of our society. Rosa Parks understood the injustice is over time, and she understood the injustice is that still exists today. on that bus in 1955. She ignited a major cultural shift in our country. Her death is a call to all of us, a signal that we must continue the fight that we must not lose sight of the light that shines brightest when it shines equally for all.

Petra Ross 18:25
Good day everyone. My name is Petra Ross and I'm representing the staff for ECU. We are all gathered here to remember and honor a woman who nearly 50 years ago in an act of defiance against oppression helped shape the most powerful nation on Earth. It was December 1 1955 at a bus stop or bus route in Montgomery, Alabama. I tried to picture the scene in my mind, was it a cold day cloudy or in any way different than any other late fall evening? I wonder if when a moment came that the bus driver asked her to stand? was Miss Park scared? Did she know that she was about to launch the career of the most famous civil rights leader in history? That being Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Did she know that she would become an icon for both African Americans and women against activists throughout the next half century? Did she know she would change the world? In trying to visualize the event on the bus? I wonder if the other passengers understood what they were witnessing the answers to these questions I will never know. What I do know is that on that early December night, something happened on that birth that affected the lives of everyone in this room today. Upon first thought I have come to the conclusion that Rosa Parks defines was less of a stance against racism or against injustice, or against anything. I think her legacy is best remembered as a stands for Something stands others have taken that marks the greatest of accomplishment in this history niche in this nation's history. The stand that the Founding Fathers made against the English crown, or to stand Lincoln made against slavery, we always see these great moments and histories acts in opposition to something. And yes, all of these actions were moments of defeat for the great evils and injustice. But what, but what these and the actions Rosa Parks took, and stood up for were truth, righteousness and liberty. As we remember Miss Rosa Parks and recall her legacy let us do what would be the greatest honor to her memory. Let us in all our undertakings, whether it is in our daily lives, or our professional and diverse walk in truth and righteousness, let us always treat others as we wish to be treated. Let us demand fairness and justice in all, we witness and take part and we may not ever become the founders of a great social movement, but we must certainly can make our workplaces and homes better places. And if we do all this with a fix and steady purpose, we will show in light that no darkness or injustice can enter with certainty the actions we take in our life. effect the world in which we live in and who knows 50 or 100 years from today, people may be gather to remember the actions of one of us in here today. Thank you Miss Rose, Rosa Parks for your inspiration. The world is a better place because of you.

Ty Davis 21:46
We will now have closing remarks from Dr. Sally McKee and Dr. Latham Turner.

Sally Mckee 22:00
Thank you so much, Miss Davis. Good afternoon. I think it was good morning when we came together. So please turn to each other and say good afternoon. Change is good. And change is wonderful. If we all decide we want to be part of it. ECU, it feels so good to say sister parks. Many in East Carolina Thank you, and hold your great works and outstanding spirit in highest esteem. And all of us in this room say May your soul be at peace with the Creator and all to the glory of our good god. I'm so honored to give thanks to the members of our planning team and the faculty staff and students who share their gifts of time, thought and care during these moments of national bereavement. And yes, I local times of civic engagement. The planning team included the following folks and I really want them to stand my team members are something else. Miss Toya Jacobs, Mr. Cory King, Dr. Latham Turner, Ms. Taffy Clayton. They join me in thanking those who brought eloquent tributes and words and music and, and expecially they join me in thanking Miss Audrey Morgan, Mr. Alton Daniels. And I Ole Miss Ty Davis for preparing and attending to human details. Let's give them a round of applause. Very importantly, I want to thank you, the citizens of East Carolina and all your many different roles for taking time from your busy day to join us in this community Memorial. For me, as a newcomer, this is just one more indication that through intentional hard work, East Carolina and the rest of this nation can work together to build a more just and equitable society. Specifically, I thank the faculty of you for you. These teachers scholars, please stand up faculty. Thank you, these teachers scholars help us to think critically about important issues like the meaning of the life and work of our ancestors, like Sister Rosa. And this helps all of us to enhance our collective human intellectual capital. I thank the staff of ECU staff, please stand up. Staff we thank you because your hard work undergirds the ability of our learning community needs to function effectively. And your dedication ensures that we will have an efficient working environment to practice and hone our leadership skills. Very, very importantly, students of ECU proud parents, please, pirates, please stand up. We all thank and honor you. Your presence here reminds us that indeed, tomorrow starts here. And with your vision, your energy and good work, you will build a preferred future imbued with social justice and meet the promise of democracy. I thank you, East Carolina.

Latham Turner 26:01
Thank you, Dr. McKee and other platform guests. And all of the East Carolina University and Greenville community that are gathered today. At this very hour, in the city of Detroit, Michigan, brothers and sisters from across the country have gathered to say their final words, parting words, in memory and in honor of Mrs. Rosa Parks. I would ask now, if you would pause with me, in your own way, for a moment of reflection. Thank you so much. Oftentimes, in our country, there is some cultural or political or religious happening that causes us to stop, pause and to think, for instance, Hillary Rodham Clinton. paraphrase an African thought that says it takes an entire village to raise a child or in the Christian community and abroad. There was a wristband and other paraphernalia that used for letters, W. W. J. D. Translate it, what would Jesus do? Today? I wonder, W. W. R. T. What would Rosa think if she were able to be with us physically, we know that she's with us spiritually, to see the progress that we have made in this country, to the extent that we can sit by each other, speak to each other, and walk with each other in the year of 2005, almost 50 years after she made that historic decision not to get up from her seat. But that decision revolutionized this country. What what Rosa think, we hope that she is proud of our accomplishments. And in as much as we are honored to remember her today, and the accomplishments she made during her lifetime.

Unknown Speaker 28:47
[Song] I'll be sitting right there. Right. Come on up to the front of the bus, and I'll be sitting right beside. I'll be sitting right come on down to the front of the bus. And I'll be right.