In December 2005, middle school students from Duanesburg, NY participated in the Schenectady County Embraces Diversity (SCED) Study Circles Action Forum where Duanesburg high school students collaborated with their middle school counterparts on an initiative to commemorate Rosa Parks' role in history.
Parks, who died in October 2005 at the age of 92, essentially launched the modern day civil rights movement. In Alabama in 1955, Parks was arrested after refusing a bus driver's order to surrender her seat to a white passenger. Her action subsequently fueled the Montgomery Bus Boycott - a significant and successful protest against racial segregation in the South.
Duanesburg students began a petition-signing campaign to place Rosa Parks image on U.S. paper currency. Hundreds of students as well as adults and community members have already showed their support by signing the paper petition.
On March 6, 2007, in an effort to reach as many people as possible, the petition
became available online through a free online hosting service.
Visit http://www.petitiononline.com/parksmny/petition.html
to read the petition text and sign the petition.