Pardons long overdue

By OTHER VIEWS / Washington Post
Published June 25, 2007

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Fifty-six years later, Lillie Mae Bradford is ready for her pardon.

Bradford was convicted in Montgomery, Ala., in 1951 of disorderly conduct for walking to the front of a bus - where blacks were not allowed - and asking for a bus transfer. The Rosa Parks Act, passed last year in Alabama and signed into law this month in Tennessee, allows civil rights trailblazers such as Bradford to clear their records.

The act pardons individuals convicted of a felony or misdemeanor that occurred while protesting laws meant to maintain racial segregation or discrimination.

Tennessee and Alabama will allow posthumous pardons. Alabama state Rep. Thad McClammy, who sponsored his state's legislation, said the first pardon has been offered to the estate of the bill's namesake, Parks, who set off the Montgomery bus boycott organized by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. after she refused to give up her bus seat for a white passenger in 1955. In Alabama, the criminal records of those who receive pardons will be sent to the state archives for display in museums or for other educational purposes. Tennessee requires the criminal records to be destroyed unless those receiving the pardons request they be preserved for public display. Bradford, for her part, hopes to frame her record and pardon.

A version of the Rosa Parks Act introduced in Florida died in committee, and the bill's sponsors have said they will try again next year. We hope Florida and other states with Jim Crow pasts will decide to adopt this legislation.