Rosa Parks asks federal appeals panel to reinstate lawsuit against rappers

By The Associated Press

05.07.01

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Rosa Parks

CINCINNATI — Lawyers for civil rights figure Rosa Parks have asked a federal appeals court panel to reinstate her lawsuit against a rap group she accuses of misusing her name in a song.

Lawyers for the 88-year-old Parks argued on May 4 that she has the right to sue to challenge the rap group OutKast's use of her name in "Rosa Parks," one of 15 songs on OutKast's album "Aquemini," which has sold 2.5 million copies since its 1998 release. Her attorneys say she objects to the Atlanta-based group's use of her name in the song and the advertising for it without permission, and she is offended by racial slurs in the song.

"This lady was deeply wounded by that," Johnnie Cochran, a lawyer for Parks, argued before the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. "Rosa Parks is an icon in this country. She's the mother of the civil rights movement. ... Because she stood up, we can all stand up."

OutKast's lawyer, Joseph Beck, argued that the Grammy-nominated song is protected by the First Amendment and that the rap group does not have to compensate Parks. U.S. District Judge Barbara Hackett ruled for the group in a 1999 pretrial decision.

Cochran said the rap group was free to express itself in its song, but can be held accountable for the content. He urged the appeals panel to send the case back to Hackett in Detroit for trial.

Appeals judges Alan Norris, R. Guy Cole Jr. and John Holschuh took the case under review and didn't say when they would rule.

Parks' arrest in 1955 for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Ala., made the black seamstress a heroine in the civil rights movement. She now lives in Detroit.

Beck said one of OutKast's lines in the disputed song, "move to the back of the bus," was derived from Parks' experience. OutKast intended the line as a message of displeasure to other rap artists that OutKast doesn't approve of, Beck told the judges.

"They are tying themselves to her, metaphorically," Beck said of OutKast.

But Holschuh responded: "The fact is, counsel, that that's the antithesis of what Rosa Parks stood for. She refused to move to the back of the bus."