Pacon mourns ‘mother of civil rights’

THE Pan African Centre of Namibia (Pacon) recently paid tribute to the late Rosa Parks, who died two weeks ago at her home in Detroit, Michigan.

Parks earned the moniker “mother of the civil rights movement” in North America when she in 1955 refused to give up her bus seat for a white man. Her one act of defiance led to a 381-day boycott of the bus system led by the reverend Martin Luther King Junior, and to a larger extent the modern civil rights movement in America.”Her refusal to give up a seat for a white person was a celebrated act of saying ‘no’ to inhuman subjugation by all Africans the world over,” Pacon said.”It was an act Pacon hails as a sign of hope amidst state-sponsored torture and dehumanisation of the people of the African continent.”The organisation said that Parks would remain in death, as she had been in life, an icon of peace and the inspiration of many Pan-Africanists.”It is highly disturbing,” it noted, however, “that after so many years of resistance by many a Pan-Africanist, Rosa Parks is leaving behind an imperfect, unfriendly, inhuman and unbalanced world not suitable for human abode and survival.”Parks died on October 24 at the age of 93.Eminent board members of Pacon include Prime Minister Nahas Angula and Minister of Youth, National Service, Sport and Culture, John Mutorwa.The patron of the organisation is former President Sam Nujoma.Her one act of defiance led to a 381-day boycott of the bus system led by the reverend Martin Luther King Junior, and to a larger extent the modern civil rights movement in America.”Her refusal to give up a seat for a white person was a celebrated act of saying ‘no’ to inhuman subjugation by all Africans the world over,” Pacon said.”It was an act Pacon hails as a sign of hope amidst state-sponsored torture and dehumanisation of the people of the African continent.”The organisation said that Parks would remain in death, as she had been in life, an icon of peace and the inspiration of many Pan-Africanists.”It is highly disturbing,” it noted, however, “that after so many years of resistance by many a Pan-Africanist, Rosa Parks is leaving behind an imperfect, unfriendly, inhuman and unbalanced world not suitable for human abode and survival.”Parks died on October 24 at the age of 93.Eminent board members of Pacon include Prime Minister Nahas Angula and Minister of Youth, National Service, Sport and Culture, John Mutorwa.The patron of the organisation is former President Sam Nujoma.