Funeral program is a treasured piece of history for Lawtonian

Walter Harkless has a funeral program he wouldn’t part with for love or money.

The book is the one handed out at the final services for civil rights icon Rosa Parks, who died in 2005 decades after the bus protest she launched in Montgomery, Ala., grew into a defining moment in the Civil Rights era. Harkless and his childhood friend Mildred Duff have several things in common with Parks: they all lived in Alabama and they all lived in Detroit (Parks and Duff moved there to live after leaving Alabama; Harkless bounced back and forth between his aunt’s home in Alabama and his father’s home in Detroit).

So, when Parks’ final funeral service was held on Nov. 2, 2005, at Greater Grace Temple Church in Detroit, Harkless and Duff were interested, as was almost anybody in the area.

What is a history lesson for many is a personal memory for Harkless and his friend. Parks was a 42-year-old tailor’s assistant at a Montgomery, Alabama, department store in December 1955 when she was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white man while riding home on a city bus. Her defiance resulted in an arrest — and ultimately cost her her job — but it also triggered a 381-day boycott of Montgomery’s bus system, led by civil rights legend Martin Luther King Jr. It ended with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in December 1956 that segregated seats on city buses were unconstitutional.

Parks wrote in her biography she had no idea her “small action would help put an end to the segregation laws in the south.” Neither did those living at that time, including Harkless and Duff. That’s why it was important to so many to be one of the 2,000 who would fill the seats designated for the general public in the church which also held notables such as former President Bill Clinton and future president/then Illinois Sen. Barrack Obama, civil rights icons Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, and singers Aretha Franklin and mezzo-soprano Brenda Jackson.

News accounts said 4,000 people packed into the church for the funeral. Harkless wasn’t one of them, as much as he wanted to be. Harkless said he had something else going on at the time and couldn’t attend.

But Duff knew the historic nature of the event and made certain her friend had a copy of the funeral book, a piece of history that illustrates Parks’ life with photographs from childhood through her elder years, pictures with friends and family as well as notables of the day. A centerpiece is a two-page program specifying each step of that final service and who would participate. Also tucked carefully inside is the note from his friends Mildred and Elmer Duff, saying “Thought you might enjoy.”

“We grew up together,” Duff said, adding it was important that her friend have that historical record.

“I ran around with her in Alabama,” Harkless said of a friendship that endures decades after their childhood ended.

Harkless and Duff consider the book a piece of history, illustrating a bygone era they vividly remember because both lived through it and participated in the protests — large and small — that led to desegregation.

The book is in mint condition, carefully tucked inside a protective cover to keep the pages neat. Harkless looks through it occasionally.

“Once a year,” he said, adding he always declines offers from those who want to buy the book because it is a part of history.

Duff said Parks’ contribution to the civil rights movement makes that history important.

“She was an icon and sparked a boycott,” she said.