Muncie Times, Muncie, Delaware County, 1 December 2005 — Page 17

The Muncie Times • December 1, 2005 • Page 17

Muncie celebrates life, times of Rosa Parks at Shaffer AME Chapel ceremony

By Maria Williams-

Havvkins, Ph.D.

On a cool, sunny Sunday afternoon, Muncie community members came together to celebrate Rosa Parks’s life and also got

a history lesson.

Members of Shaffer Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, 1501 E. Highland Ave., Muncie, as well as representatives from the community, united to pay tribute to the late Rosa Parks, the woman whose efforts to stop

the madness of segre- Parks set forth,

gation earned her the The program began the block for a silent

name mother of the with a memorial march Civil Rights around the block upon

Movement.

L-R Mary Dollison, Martha Billings and Ed McNeary view a

duplicate coin box that was in the bus that Rosa Parks rode on the historical day when she refused to move to the back of the bus.

the congregants around paid tribute to several

unsung heroes.

which Shaffer AME

march.

The Rev.

W i 11 i a m s - H a w k i n s

After greeted the attendees.

The presenters shared Chapel sits,

historical connections singing “We Shall while that tied their families Overcome”, led by and experiences to the Evangelist Viola Boyd,

changes that Rosa Minister Judy Mays led portion of the program.

Three community

Maria members who were rec-

ognized by the program organizersidentified

Mays, Pastor their connection to Charlotte Levi and desegregation efforts: Boyd led the devotional Richard Ivy, Muncie

personnel director,

The program incor- explained his family

the

Bus

Boycott. He said his family and family

porated all ages, connection to Darryal Hawkins Jr. led Montgomery

the litany of remembrance and thanksgiv-

ing and Youth With A friends provided meet1 Future attended as a ing places for boycott group, celebrating organizers. Phyllis Parks’s life. The Union Bartleson, director of Missionary Baptist the Human Rights Praise Team provided Commission, talked music for the evening. about the changes she

had facilitated in Muncie over the 17 years that she has

Recipients of the Anthony L. Oliver Civil Rights Oliver Award L-R James Williams Jr. for Father Rev. James Williams, Joyce Marshel for Mother Alice McIntosh Kelley, Jan Beilke president of NAACP, Ed McNeary and Ella McNeary

The Rev. James Williams II offered a local perspective on the

Civil Rights Movement served. Jayne Beilke, a when he discussed native Minnesotan, said members of the Muncie her hometown was concommunity whose acts sidered one of the of courage helped “whitest” cities in the desegregate the auto- country. The lack of motive industry. He diversity in her home-

town, however, in no way stopped her from understanding the need to work with all people. Beilke is the first nonblack president of the Muncie NAACP chapter. The key message was given by the Rev. Dorothea Norwood, Shaffer AME Chapel’s new minister, who was introduced by Evangelist Tonda Kay Bell. A history maker herself, as the first woman pastor at Shaffer, Norwood expounded on Parks's significance and contributions to the civil rights of all people. Although not part of the regular program, immediately after the closing, members of the audience were asked to come to the front of the church to see some display items. A coin receptacle was placed on display to let people see the kind of coin machine people placed their money in on the buses like the Montgomery, Ala., one on which Parks made her stand. MITS produces these coin machines. There are three still in existence: One is on display in the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit. Another is permanently displayed at the MITS office and the third was placed on display for this celebration. This unit is the traveling display.