Johnnie Carr Joins the Angels & We Mourn

Photo by Rob Carr, AP

My heart felt heavy when I read the news that 97-year-old Johnnie Carr died on February 22, 2008. Southern Poverty Law Center co-founder Morris Dees called Carr a Civil Rights Icon: Carr joined her childhood friend Rosa Parks during the Montgomery bus boycott. Her son Arlam Carr, Jr. was a classmate at Montgomery's Sidney Lanier High School, although it took the court case his mother initiated to end desegregation at the city's formerly all-white schools. My condolences go out toArlam and his family as I reflect on life in the South during those turbulent years.