Thursday, January 10, 2008

Active Adventist #4?

Irene Morgan Kirkaldy died on August 10, 2007. You don't know her name, but you should. She did the same thing Rosa Parks did. Only a decade earlier.

In 1944 it was the practice and law at the time for the seating available to whites on buses to be enlarged as needed and those provided for blacks to be compressed without regard to the personal comfort of African Americans. Irene refused to move and told a black woman holding a baby in the seat next to her not to move also. Click the pic to read the NY Times article to find out what happened next.

Like most of the hero's of the Civil Rights Movement, Irene Morgan Kirkaldy was a woman of faith, active in her church and believing that it was God's will, based on Bible principles, to stand up for social justice. She was a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and in a letter read at her funeral, the president of the Adventist church, Dr. Jan Paulsen, stated, "We as a church are appreciative of her remarkable strength in those defining moments in the history of the United States and the world."

No comments: