Nominations sought for Rosa Parks Quiet Courage award

Nominations are being accepted through Nov. 4 for the 2022 Rosa Parks Quiet Courage award.

The award is presented by the Rosa Parks Quiet Courage Committee to local residents  who have lived lives that demonstrate a commitment to the cause of justice, equality and peace similar to how the late civil rights icon Rosa Parks lived her life.

The award has been presented to local residents since the committee held its first tribute program in 2006, and is the highlight of the annual program.

Known as the "mother" of the civil rights movement, Parks is commonly known for helping to spark the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s when she refused to give up a city bus seat to a white passenger on Dec. 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama. Her subsequent arrest led the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to lead a bus boycott protesting her arrest and the Jim Crow era laws in Montgomery and throughout the South.

Tribute established after Parks' death in 2005

After Parks died in October 2005, the Rev. Milford L. Griner organized an event to pay tribute to Parks in Gainesville. Griner is founder and president of the RPQCC. He said over 300 people attended the first tribute and asked if it would become an annual event.

"At the time, I thought it was going to be a one-time tribute," Griner said. "People asked me to make it an annual event so I saw it fit to have an organization to honor residents who exhibit Parks' traits."

Griner said an accomplishment he is proud of is when the city of Gainesville renamed the Regional Transit System (RTS) Bus Transfer Station to the Rosa Parks RTS Bus Transfer Station in 2008 after it was recommended by the RPQCC. The facility is located at 700 SE Third St., across the street from Depot Park, in 2008.

There is a plaque honoring Parks at the station that Griner said the committee raised $12,000 to help install.

This year's tribute will be held at 3 p.m. on Dec. 4 at PASSAGE Family Church, 2020 NE 15th St. The theme for this year's tribute will be "Make Justice JUST Again."

The entire community is invited to the program to gather once again to pay tribute to a humble woman who changed the nation and the world by a single act of defiance. This year's tribute will focus on the many cases and instances of injustice, violence, hatred and racism that has taken place over the past several years, and how those who believe in justice being just, must step up and take a stand with courage and determination, Griner said.

"Justice must be meaningful and it must come with a positive outcome," Griner said. "There's too many cases where justice was not served, the verdict was not just."

"It's time to turn thin paper into thick action," Griner said, quoting King.

Event will also pay tribute to the late Patricia Hilliard-Nunn

The tribute will also feature poetry, songs and readings from committee members. It will also include a tribute to the late Patricia Hilliard-Nunn, Ph.D., a well-known historian, University of Florida professor and community activist, who was an original member of the committee, and served faithfully until her death in August 2020.

Griner said the last program Hilliard-Nunn took part in was in December 2019.

"She was loved by many, and still sorely missed by many as well," Griner said.

Paying tribute to Hilliard-Nunn is very important to the committee because Hilliard-Nunn was very active in the organization, said Erma Sams, the committee's secretary.   .

"She had a great sense of humor, was very forthcoming, inquisitive and full of wisdom," Sams said. "She believed everybody had an opportunity to be great."

Sams remembered how Hilliard-Nunn's presence would light up a room and how she made every person she talked to feel understood.

"When I started working with her, she resonated with me because she would shine a light on me and she would do that to everyone she met," Sams said.

The committee invites all living award recipients to this year's program so members can recognize them for their continued service.

"We want to make sure we honor all living recipients while they're still living," Griner said. "It's important to give people their flowers while they're still here."

Nominations can be submitted by e-mail to the committee's secretary, Sams, at sams9503@yahoo, or to Griner at mlgriner@yahoo.com.

This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Nominations sought for Rosa Parks Quiet Courage award by Nov. 4.