Bill would establish Rosa Parks Day as a federal holiday on December 1, the day she instigated the Montgomery bus boycott
This would be the first federal holiday to honor a woman.
Context
On December 1, 1955, a black woman named Rosa Parks refused to give up her Montgomery, Alabama bus seat for a white passenger. Her conviction and fine led to the Montgomery bus boycott, one of the pivotal events of the 1950s-60s civil rights movement.
There had been plans for such a boycott for some time, but Parks — a civil rights activist — provided the spark which actually made it happen. The boycott proved successful when the Supreme Court upheld the 2–1 Alabama district court decision Browder v. Gayle, which ruled that public transportation racial segregation was unconstitutional.
Parks, who died in 2005, would later receive both the Presidential Medal of Freedom (the highest award bestowed by a president) and the Congressional Gold Medal (the highest award bestowed by Congress).
Four states currently have Rosa Parks Day as an official state holiday. California and Missouri celebrate it on February 4, her birthday, while Ohio and Oregon celebrate it on December 1, the day of her arrest.
What the bill does
A new bill would create Rosa Parks Day as an official federal holiday.
If enacted, the holiday would fall on December 1, mere days after Thanksgiving — in some years supplanting the seven days between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day as the shortest distance between federal holidays. (Once every four years, including 2021, the federal holidays of MLK Day and Inauguration Day also occur mere days apart.)
The bill was introduced in the House on August 27 as H.R. 5111, by Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN5). It does not appear to have another, more “official” title.
What supporters say
Supporters argue that Rosa Parks was one of America’s greatest civil rights icons and merits a national holiday.
“There may not have even been a [1950s-60s civil rights] movement were it not for the bravery of a young woman from Alabama named Rosa Parks,” Rep. Cooper said in a press release. “There is no more fitting or deserving person in American history to award the honor of a new national holiday than Rosa Parks.”
“As a state legislator, I was proud to lead the push to make the Buckeye State the first state to officially recognize Rosa Parks Day,” cosponsor Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH3) said in the same press release. “It’s now time for us to come together as a nation to honor this American hero through a new national holiday.”
GovTrack Insider was unable to locate any explicit statements of opposition. The 2000 California vote to create the state holiday passed unanimously, while 1999’s Congressional Gold Medal votes for Parks were by a unanimous voice vote in the House and by 86–0 in the Senate.
Odds of passage
The bill has attracted three cosponsors, all Democrats. It awaits a potential vote in the House Oversight and Reform Committee.
Earlier this summer, Congress voted to make Juneteenth the 11th federal holiday. Commemorating the June 19, 1865 date when the last former slaves were informed of their emancipation in Texas, the bill was passed by unanimous consent in the Senate and 415–14 in the House. It seems doubtful there’s an appetite in Congress to create two federal holidays in the same year.
Created in 1983, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day also honors a black civil rights leader of the same era, perhaps another reason that this one seems unlikely to be enacted.
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This article was written by GovTrack Insider staff writer Jesse Rifkin.
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