Alabama: The Rosa Parks Act

I've just had another 'what century are we living in again??' moment. Check this out from the LA Times today. Wasnt it Martin Luther King who said 'justice too long delayed is justice denied...?! That said, acknowledgement does make a statement, so maybe I should not be too harsh...

'Civil rights activists and others convicted under laws that enforced racial discrimination would be eligible for a pardon from the state of Alabama under a bill working its way through the Legislature, the bill's sponsor said Friday (March 17).

Rep. Thad McClammy said that his proposed "Rosa Parks Act" would serve the symbolic purpose of bestowing posthumous pardons on activists like Parks, whose 1955 arrest sparked the 381-day Montgomery bus boycott.

But McClammy, a Democrat, said the pardons also could help living veterans of the segregated South, who still may have trouble explaining away their arrests when applying for jobs or loans.

"If they do a background check, they say: 'Oh my … this person was arrested five times,' " McClammy said. "It follows you. What we're saying is, not only should individuals be pardoned, but the record should be expunged. These were illegal laws."

Read the rest here... http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-pardon18mar18,1,3742792.story?coll=la-news-a_section