Bill in U.S. House would honor Rosa Parks with federal holiday
A new bill in Congress would honor Rosa Parks with a federal holiday. At a press conference on November 29, Representative Terri Sewell announced she is sponsoring a bill that would make December 1st a federal holiday. December 1 is significant because on that day in 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery for refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white passenger. This sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott and energized the Civil Rights Movement.
Right now, the United States does not have a federal holiday that honors any one woman of any race. This is the second time Representative Sewell has tried to get a Rosa Parks Day bill passed in Congress – she was co-sponsor of a bill last year. She says for her, it’s personal and she will not stop until it is passed. Sewell says, “Rosa Parks is a true American hero. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996, the Congressional Gold Medal in 1999, and even became the first woman in America to lie in honor and state at the US capitol rotunda. Her life-long work in the fight for justice and equality still resonates today and inspires our communities to fight for the advancement of justice and equality.”
Historically, bills establishing federal holidays have been difficult to get passed through Congress. In 2021, Juneteenth became the latest federal holiday in the U.S., and it was the first to be approved since Martin Luther King Junior Day in 1983, almost 40 years earlier. Currently, Representative Sewell says she has more than 40 democrats signed on to support the bill, but she will need 218 votes to pass it in the House.
