Tuesday, June 15, 1999
Teacher owes to Rosa Parks
Oxford woman to witness honor
BY MARIE McCAIN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Patricia Ellis, of Oxford, may be best known for her successes as a high school teacher and a civil rights historian, but she thinks she has done some of her best work as a student.
And today she'll have a chance to stand by one of her greatest teachers — Rosa Parks.
A member of the National Underground Railroad board of directors who has made it her business to learn and teach the history of African-Americans, Mrs. Ellis will join throngs of other well-wishers at a special award ceremony in Washington D.C. for Mrs. Parks.
The 86-year-old civil rights icon will be given the Congressional Gold Medal for her contributions to the United States.
On Dec. 1, 1955, Mrs. Parks, a seamstress, refused to take a “colored-only” seat on a segregated Montgomery, Ala., bus so that a white passengers could sit. This simple act sparked a series of protests that eventually evolved into a full-blown quest for African-American equality.
“I'm very excited and feel very blessed to be a part of history in the making,” said Mrs. Ellis, a 58-year-old Hamilton High School teacher. She has her own collections of awards, including one from the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Commission for her commitment to the Rev. Dr. King's six principles of nonviolence.
Mrs. Ellis was invited to attend today's ceremony by Mrs. Parks' Detroit office.
The two women met in 1997, prior to the start of what was supposed to have been a monthlong road trip tracing the path of the Underground Railroad through 22 cities in 15 states and Canada.
But the student trip ended in its third week when the bus carrying the 35 travelers went off an embankment and landed in the Nottoway River along Interstate 95 in Stony Creek, Va.
Mrs. Ellis, a chaperone, suffered a severe cut over her eye, while another chaperone, 25-year-old Adisa Foluke of Detroit — whom Mrs. Parks regarded as being a grandson — was killed. Others on the bus suffered a variety of injuries.
The two women met again last September when Mrs. Parks came to Cincinnati to accept the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center's first International Freedom Conductor Award.
“God has blessed her,” Mrs. Ellis said of Mrs. Parks.
Her refusal to give up her bus seat “wasn't about her. It was about a time God had designated and she was just the instrument of His will,” Mrs. Ellis added.
President Clinton agreed to award Mrs. Parks the Congressional Gold Medal in May, after he signed a bill sponsored by U.S. Rep. Julia Carson, D-Ind.
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