Ezekiel Barfield (in photo) doesn’t usually ride a city bus; he drives to work in Bridgeport. But he joined dozens of CT Transit riders Thursday morning to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the day seamstress Rosa Parks sparked a seminal chapter in U.S. civil rights history by refusing to relinquish her seat in the white section of a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. If Parks were alive today and living in New Haven, would she ride a city bus?
“She’d probably have someone chauffeur her,” suggested one of a bevy of a ministers on the morning bus ride from Union Temple Freewill Baptist Church on Platt Street to a spirited City Hall rally.
“On the second hand, where she’d probably be working today, there probably would be no public transportation.”
“She probably wouldn’t be able to afford to ride the bus,” chimed in Mayor John DeStefano, noting that the state has raised bus fares 25 percent over the past three years.
The Rev. Emilio Hernandez settled the question for the crowd that gathered outside City Hall to honor Parks’ memory.
“I think she would be driving the bus!” Hernandez said. It’s not enough to sit in front of the bus, literally, or metaphorically, he continued; people need to occupy the driver’s seat and steer the course of society toward social justice. “The day we say it’s enough is the day we forget about Rosa Parks.”
Toward that end, Dottie Green (in photo) exhorted the crowd to join her in launching a new civil-rights campaign in Parks’ memory. Green, principal of a prison school in Cheshire and an active member of Temple Freewill Baptist Church, organized Thursday’s “Ride the Bus Dec. 1” event. She invited people back to the church after the rally and the ride to discuss a longer-range activist campaign. (To find out more, and get involved, contact her by e‑mail. The Rosa Parks Express has miles more to travel.
