Community members gathered in the tree shade at the Rosa Parks RTS Downtown Station on Tuesday, along with officials from the city of Gainesville and Alachua County, to celebrate the Civil Rights legacy of Rosa Parks on what would have been her 112th birthday. 

Rev. Milford L. Griner, president and founder of Gainesville’s Rosa Parks Quiet Courage Committee (RPQCC), also took the opportunity to pass the mantle of RPQCC presidency to Bonnie K. Burgess, former mayor and commissioner for the city of Alachua. 

Griner founded RPQCC in 2006 after Parks’ death on Oct. 24, 2005, and Burgess was one of the original seven committee members. 

The highlight of Griner’s time as president, he said, was in 2008, when RPQCC partnered with the city of Gainesville and RTS to change the name of the downtown transfer station to be dedicated in Rosa Parks’ honor. Even years later, every time he sees a bus drive by with a headsign reading “Rosa Parks,” he wants to do a cartwheel. 

Burgess said her first order of business is to get the RPQCC members together for a meeting to determine priorities. She is full of passion and ideas, but she said she wants to listen to what others want to accomplish and move with their strengths. 

The committee is also looking for new members, and Burgess said she wants to get it on a regular meeting schedule so that people can put it in their calendars and show up to get involved. She said since COVID-19, the committee has slipped toward an irregular, virtual meeting schedule. 

Burgess stressed the importance of education and keeping the history of civil rights leaders like Parks alive. But she said she does not want to keep that education attached to a single day or month out of the year, nor to a single city in Alachua County. 

“A lot of times they say, oh, we’re doing a Black history program. They bring up Dr. Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks, then people get complacent with it,” Burgess said. “I want the complacency to leave. I want it to be aware, and it’s not just in the name, it’s what she stood for, and how even though [Parks has] never come to the state of Florida, she’s made an impact. She made an impact on me and my life, and all the people that are around me.” 

Though Burgess said Gainesville has been “phenomenal,” starting with the transfer station dedication and carrying on with partnership over the years, one of the ideas Burgess plans to bring up with the committee is a plan to rotate meetings to different municipalities in Alachua County to help involve people from all around the county. 

To expand the education component beyond a single civil rights leader, and beyond even Black history, Burgess said she hopes to be able to coordinate with other local organizations that focus on people like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Susan B. Anthony. 

“We don’t want this committee to stand out. Today was just our day because it’s [Parks’] birthday, and we wanted to celebrate her birthday,” Burgess said. 

The Rosa Parks Day event was originally scheduled for early December 2024, centered around the day in December 1955 when Parks was arrested for refusing to leave a White Passengers Only seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus. 

Griner, 66, had announced at the December 2023 Day of Courage event that he would be stepping down as the committee’s president but waited until Tuesday’s event to announce Bonnie K. Burgess as his replacement.  

Griner explained that he was hospitalized with double pneumonia a few weeks after the 2023 event. Combined with an existing lung condition, the pneumonia permanently damaged his lungs and voice. 

Griner said he has now developed and reached the third stage of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), restricted breathing caused by lung and airway diseases. He said he is advancing toward the fourth and final stage, making breathing increasingly difficult. 

Though Griner said he would be “fading back into the background” to focus on his health, he also committed to remaining involved, still committed to community involvement and activism. 

“Whenever there’s something that has to be said, I will say it. Whenever there’s something that has to be done, I might not be able to be present in person, but believe me, I will be heard from,” Griner said. 

After speeches from officials from Alachua County, the city of Gainesville, Alachua County Sheriff’s Office, Gainesville Police Department, the NAACP, and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Commission of Florida and others, Tuesday’s event closed with a benediction from Bishop Christopher Stokes, who prayed for strength and blessing over Griner. 
Editor’s note: This story was updated with the correct age that Rosa Parks would have been. Her birthday was Feb. 4, 1913.