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Rosa Parks 1913-2005: We Air A Rare 1956 Interview With Parks
During the Montgomery Bus Boycott
John Conyers On Rosa Parks: “She Earned the Title as
Mother of the Civil Rights Movement.”
Cheney's Role in CIA Leak Exposed: NYT Says Cheney Gave Valerie
Plame's Name to Libby
The Fallen Legion: Casualties of the Bush Administration
Rosa Parks 1913-2005: We Air A Rare 1956 Interview
With Parks During the Montgomery Bus Boycott
Civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks has died at the age of 92.
It was 50 years ago this December that she refused to relinquish
her seat to a white man aboard a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama.
Her act of resistance led to a 13-month boycott of the Montgomery
bus system that would spark the civil rights movement. We
go back to 1956 to air a rare interview aired on KPFA with
Parks.
It was 50 years ago this December that Rosa Parks refused
to relinquish her seat to a white man aboard a city bus in
Montgomery, Alabama. She was arrested and convicted of violating
the state’s segregation laws.
Her act of resistance led to a 13-month boycott of the Montgomery
bus system that would spark the civil rights movement. And
it would inspire freedom struggles abroad including in South
Africa. The bus boycott would also help transform a 26-year-old
preacher named Martin Luther King Junior to national prominence.
Rosa Parks’ arrest came just months after the lynching
of Emmett Till.
At the time of her arrest, Parks was a 43-year-old seamstress
and a seasoned civil rights activist. Since the 1940s she
had been active in the NAACP, helped raise money to defend
the Scottsboro rape case and attended trainings at the Highlander
Folk School of Tennessee.
After the successful bus boycott Parks would continue to
take part in the civil rights movement in this country. She
marched in Selma, Alabama. She took part in the 1963 March
on Washington. After moving to Detroit, she worked for Congressman
John Conyers.
We go back to 1956 in the midst of the Montgomery Bus Boycott
to one of the earliest preserved interviews with Rosa Parks.
- Rosa Parks, interviewed in April 1956 by Pacifica radio
station KPFA. The interview comes from the Pacifica
Radio Archives.
John Conyers On Rosa Parks: “She Earned the
Title as Mother of the Civil Rights Movement.”
We speak with Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan), who worked
with Parks for over a decade. Conyers remembers Parks’
life and speaks about the possibility of a state funeral and
a national “Rosa Parks day.”
- Rep. John Conyers, (D-Michigan)
Cheney's Role in CIA Leak Exposed: NYT Says Cheney
Gave Valerie Plame's Name to Libby
We speak to former CIA analyst Melvin Goodman on the latest
development in the CIA leak case. The New York Times is reporting
today that Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff
Lewis Scooter Libby first learned the identity of the CIA
operative from his boss – Dick Cheney.
Lawyers involved in the case say the two discussed the CIA
operative – Valerie Plame – on June 12, 2003 –
weeks before her undercover status was outed in the press.
Plame is the wife of former U.S. ambassador Joseph Wilson,
who has accused the White House outing his wife because he
had publicly criticized the Iraq war.
Notes of the previously undisclosed conversation between
Libby and Cheney also appears to run counter to Libby’s
testimony to a federal grand jury that he first learned about
Plame from reporters. According to the Times, the notes do
not show that Cheney knew the name of Wilson’s wife.
But they do show that Cheney did know, and told Libby she
was employed by the CIA and that she may have helped arrange
her husband’s trip to Niger. The notes also indicate
Cheney had gotten his information about Plame from George
Tenet, the director of central intelligence, in response to
questions from the vice president about Wilson.
The grand jury is expected to decide whether to bring charges
in the case by Friday, when their term expires. Reports have
indicated both Libby and President Bush’s senior adviser,
Karl Rove face the possibility of indictment.
At a cabinet meeting at the White House Monday, President
Bush said, "This is a very serious investigation."
While the case is focused on the outing of an undercover operative,
it centers on the administration’s justification for
the invasion of Iraq. The mainstream media is now focusing
again on the faulty claims of weapons of mass destruction.
In an article in the Los Angeles Times, Lawrence Wilkerson,
Colin Powell’s chief of staff at the State Department
for three years writes "Some of the most important decisions
about U.S. national security -- including vital decisions
about postwar Iraq -- were made by a secretive, little-known
cabal. It was made up of a very small group of people led
by Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld."
- Melvin Goodman, former CIA and State Department analyst.
He is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy
and director of the Center’s National Security Project.
He is the author of the book: "Bush League Diplomacy:
How the Neoconservatives Are Putting the World at Risk."
The Fallen Legion: Casualties of the Bush Administration
Several dozen government officials have vacated their posts
since the Bush administration took office. We speak with Nick
Turse about some of the more well-known figures who compile
the list of “the fallen."
As the possibility that officials high up in the Bush administration
face indictments this week, we take a look at other officials
who were forced out or resigned because of the stances they
took against policies of the administration. In an article
posted on TomDispatch.com, titled the "Fallen Legion,"
writer Nick Turse compiled a list of these people and their
reasons for leaving. Nick writes about “a seemingly
endless and ever-growing list of beleaguered administrators,
managers, and career civil servants who quit their posts in
protest or were defamed, threatened, fired, forced out, demoted,
or driven to retire by Bush administration strong-arming.
Often, this has been due to revulsion at the President’s
policies -- from the invasion of Iraq and negotiations with
North Korea to the flattening of FEMA and the slashing of
environmental standards -- which these women and men found
to be beyond the pale.”
Here are some of the names of those listed at TomDispatch.com.
The complete list of 42 officials can be found at
the website.
- Bunnatine ("Bunny") Greenhouse, the top official
at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in charge of awarding
government contracts for the reconstruction.
- Richard Clarke, he held the position of the president's
chief adviser on terrorism on the National Security Council
-- a Cabinet-level post.
- Paul O'Neill, served nearly two years in George W. Bush's
cabinet as Secretary of the Treasury.
- Flynt Leverett, Ben Miller and Hillary Mann: A Senior
Director for Middle East Affairs on President Bush's National
Security Council (NSC), a CIA staffer and Iraq expert with
the NSC, and a foreign service officer on detail to the
NSC as the Director for Iran and Persian Gulf Affairs.
- Larry Lindsey: A "top economic adviser" to
Bush.
- Ann Wright: A career diplomat in the Foreign Service
and a colonel in the Army Reserves.
- John Brady Kiesling: A career diplomat who served four
presidents over a twenty year span.
- John Brown, 25 veteran of the Foreign Service.
- Rand Beers, he National Security Council's senior director
for combating terrorism.
- Anthony Zinni: A soldier and diplomat for 40 years, Zinni
served from 1997 to 2000 as commander-in-chief of the United
States Central Command in the Middle East, called back to
service by the Bush administration to assume one of the
highest diplomatic posts, special envoy to the Middle East
(from November 2002 to March 2003).
- Eric Shinseki, the Army's chief of staff
- Karen Kwiatkowski: A Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force
who served in the Department of Defense's Near East and
South Asia (NESA) Bureau in the year before the invasion
of Iraq.
- Charles "Jack" Pritchard: A retired U.S. Army
colonel and a 28-year veteran of the military, the State
Department, and the National Security Council, who served
as the State Department's senior expert on North Korea and
as the special envoy for negotiations with that country.
- And more...
For a copy of today’s program, call 1 (800) 881 2359.
Our website is www.democracynow.org.
Our email address is mail@democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is produced by Mike Burke, Sharif Abdel Kouddous,
Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press, Jeremy Scahill and Parvez Sharma.
Mike Di Filippo is our engineer.
Thanks also to Uri Galed, Angela Alston, Orlando Richards,
Simba Russeau, Johnny Sender, Rich Kim, Joe Murgio, John Randolph,
Chris Zucker, Karen Ranucci, Denis Moynihan, Eric Rweyemamu,
Jenny Filipazzo and Isis Phillips.
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