Edna Griffin and Rosa Parks held nation accountable By Judith Stanford Miller, M.Ed., M.A. (This article was first published on Student News Net, Sept. 22, 2017, ID #8945) Sept. 22, 2017 – Two African American women – Edna Griffin in Des Moines, Iowa at a lunch counter in 1948 and Rosa Parks on a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955 – stood up for their civil rights by quietly sitting at a lunch counter and on a bus respectively. In doing so, they held the nation accountable and influenced American history. One hundred and fifty-five years ago today, President Abraham Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. The final Emancipation Proclamation was issued a few months later on Jan. 1, 1863. The National Archives summarizes what President Lincoln proclaimed in the document. On Aug. 23, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., through his famous ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, challenged the nation to live up to the promises made in the Declaration of Independence and the Emancipation Proclamation. Edna Griffin Often called the Rosa Parks of Iowa, Edna’s action for equality in 1948 occurred seven years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama city […]