From the Washington National Cathedral to Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church to the Troy University campus in Montgomery, bells rang out at 6:06 p.m. Monday night to honor the fateful arrest of Rosa Parks. The timing of the bells marked the exact moment of Parks’ arrest for refusing to sit in the back of a Montgomery bus 70 years earlier.
Rosa Parks was arrested on December 1, 1955. Four days later, on December 5, over 5,000 people attended the first Mass Meeting to plan a boycott of the bus system. The boycott lasted 381 days and set in motion the national movement that ultimately dismantled Jim Crow.
Monday’s observance was organized by the Southern Youth Leadership Development Institute (SYLDI), a Montgomery, Alabama-based organization founded by civil rights activist Doris Crenshaw, a former student of Parks.
“Mrs. Parks was a warm, caring person who didn’t raise her voice but never backed down from doing what was right,” Crenshaw said. “So many people around the world still look to her for courage, and she has inspired people everywhere to use their voice with purpose. When communities pause like this, it reminds us of the lessons she lived and the work we’re supposed to keep doing.”
As part of SYLDI’s coordinated call to reflection, churches, synagogues, other houses of worship, college campuses, and community groups around the world paused simultaneously to honor Parks’ act of civil disobedience and its role in igniting the broader Civil Rights Movement. In addition to tolling bells, communities lit candles, observed a moment of silence, gathered in prayer, and lifted the memory of Parks in ways meaningful to their communities.
Among the institutions tolling their bells were the Washington National Cathedral, Ebenezer Baptist Church, Troy University—Montgomery Campus, the University of Michigan, and several churches and colleges in Alabama, California, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, New York, Massachusetts, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Quebec, Canada.
In addition to Monday’s worldwide reflection, SYLDI is hosting a series of events December 1–6 in Montgomery to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Details about all of SYLDI’s events can be found at syldi.org/mgmbusboycott.
