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Roving Camera


What figure in African American history has had the biggest impact on you?

Rosa Parks. For two reasons: one, she was a woman, and two, she showed such courage. I take the bus all the time as an ordinary woman, and think how extraordinary this ordinary woman was.

 Linda Meehan
Nurse Practitioner
Boston
Martin Luther King Jr., for bringing all people together and opening up the floodgates for hope.

 Denise Brown
Substance Abuse Case Manager
Roxbury
Harriet Tubman. She helped to free the slaves through [the] Underground Railroad.

 Bryanna Noble
Home Health Aide
Dorchester
Martin Luther King Jr. He said something that has always stuck with me and I [use to] advise … young people — “If a man hasn’t discovered something [that he will] die for, he isn’t fit to live.”

 Robert “Bobby” Taylor
School Bus Driver
Roxbury
I’ve watched the tapes and documentaries of the early civil rights movement in the South. Those people who withstood the dogs and police, etc., are my heroes. A drill sergeant told me once: Freedom is not free, you have to fight for it.

 Steve Bell
Maintenance
Roxbury
[Learning about it was] my first memory and [it] is still impressive: Crispus Attucks, the first African American killed in the Revolutionary War — the first noted African American to sacrifice his life for freedom.

 Jonathan Rodrigues
Captain, Boston Fire Department
Boston