Johnnie R. Carr, a childhood friend of Rosa Parks of Montgomery, Alabama, leaves her own legacy.

JOHNNIE  R. CARR: STICK-TO-ITIVENESS WITH GRACE

On February 11, 2008, Johnnie R. Carr, human relations icon, dies at the age of 97. She had been a childhood friend of Rosa Parks and for many years President of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) that was organized four days after Rosa Parks' arrest. I was the oiriginal secretary of the MIA.

I first met Mrs. Carr in 1953, shortly after I was invited to serve during the interim as (supply) pastor of Hall Street Baptist Church, her membership church. Six months later I became pastor of Bell Street Baptist Church.

Shortly after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., pastor of  Dexter Avenue Baptist Church and Rev. Ralph D. Abernathy, pastor of the First Baptist Church, moved to Atlanta, the MIA began to wane. In 1961, less than a year before I left Montgomery to  live in California, Mrs. Carr and some others, seeking to revitalize the MIA, invited me to offer prayer during that gathering. A copy of my prayer, "God's Holy Light," was distributed to the participants.

It would be more than forty years later when I would again talk with Mrs. Carr in  2005 during the "50th Anniversary Commemoration of the Montgomery Bus Boycott." I was amazed to learn that Mrs. Carr was still president of the MIA and that at 94 she appeared to be somewhat youthful.

Mrs. Carr was a stick-to-itiveness icon,  ameliorator and commuintiy builder. An Editorial in the "Montgomery Advertiser" (Feb. 24), rightly referred to her as the "community's conscience."

For more than a half century she was chief curatoer of the legacy of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, let us strive to keep alive her legacy in perpetuity.

Copyright 2008 by Uriah J. Fields