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NARRATOR: The first reading is an account of a mass meeting at the outset of the Civil Rights Movement, occurring in the aftermath of Rosa Park’s arrest in December of 1955. Parks’ arrest had galvanized the African American community. The large gathering that night back in 1955 was the first of its kind. Here’s the story as recorded by Taylor Branch in his Civil Rights classic, Parting the Waters…

NARRATOR: The hostile press later estimated the crowd at five thousand people… Whatever the exact number, only a small fraction of the bodies fit inside the church, and loudspeakers were being set up to amplify the proceedings to an outdoor crowd that stretched over several acres, across streets and around cars that had been parked at all angles. “You know something, Finley,” said King as he prepared to abandon the car. “This could turn into something big.” It took him fifteen minutes to push his way through the crowd. Shortly thereafter, the Holt Street pastor called him to the pulpit.

King stood silently for a moment. When he greeted the enormous crowd of strangers, who were packed in the balconies and aisles, peering in through the windows and upward from seats on the floor, he spoke in a deep voice, stressing his diction in a slow introductory cadence.

KING: “We are here this evening—for serious business.”

NARRATOR: When he paused, only one or two “yes” responses came up from the crowd, and they were quiet ones. It was a throng of shouters, he could see, but they were waiting to see where he would take them.

KING: “We are here in a general sense, because first and foremost—we are American citizens—and we are determined to apply our citizenship—to the fullness of its means. But we’re here in a specific sense—because of the bus station in Montgomery. The situation is not at all new. Just the other day—just last Thursday to be exact—one of the finest citizens in Montgomery—not one of the finest Negro citizens—but one of the finest citizens in Montgomery—was taken from a bus—and carried to jail and arrested—because she refused to give up—to give her seat to a white person.

“And since it had to happen, I’m happy it happened to a person like Mrs. Parks, for nobody can doubt the boundless outreach of her integrity. Nobody can doubt the height of her character, nobody can doubt the depth of her Christian commitment.” And just because she refused to get up, she was arrested. And you know, my friends, there comes a time, when people get tired of being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression.”

NARRATOR: A flock of “yeses” was coming back at him when suddenly the individual responses dissolved into a rising cheer and applause exploded beneath the cheer—all within the space of a second. The startling noise rolled on and on, like a wave that refused to break, and just when it seemed that the roar must finally weaken, a wall of sound came in from the enormous crowd outdoors to push the volume still higher. Thunder seemed to be added to the lower register—the sound of feet stomping on the wooden floor—until the loudness became something that was not so much heard as it was sensed by vibrations in the lungs. The giant cloud of noise shook the building and refused to go away. One sentence had set it loose somehow, pushing the call-and-response of the church service past the din of a political rally and on to something else that King had never known before.

Thank you Miss Rosa, you are the spark,
You started our freedom movement
Thank you Sister Rosa Parks.

So we dedicate this song to thee
for being the symbol of our dignity.
Thank Sister Rosa Parks.