奧巴馬在羅莎 帕克斯紀念雕像落成典禮的講話

Mr. Speaker, Leader Reid, Leader McConnell, Leader Pelosi, Assistant Leader Clyburn; to the friends and family of Rosa Parks; to the distinguished guests who are gathered here today.
議長先生、（參議院多數黨）領袖裏德、（參議院少數黨）領袖麥康奈爾、（衆議院少數黨）領袖佩洛西、（衆議院少數黨）助理領袖克萊伯恩、羅莎-帕克斯的朋友和家人以及今天聚集此地的貴賓們：

This morning, we celebrate a seamstress, slight in stature but mighty in courage. She defied the odds, and she defied injustice. She lived a life of activism, but also a life of dignity and grace. And in a single moment, with the simplest of gestures, she helped change America -- and change the world.
今天早上，我們紀念一位身材瘦小，但勇氣巨大的女裁縫。她不畏逆境，反抗不公。她的一生是獻身社會行動的一生，同時也是保持尊嚴與風姿的一生。她在頃刻之間，以最簡單的姿態幫助改變了美國——也改變了世界。

Rosa Parks held no elected office. She possessed no fortune; lived her life far from the formal seats of power. And yet today, she takes her rightful place among those who’ve shaped this nation’s course. I thank all those persons, in particular the members of the Congressional Black Caucus, both past and present, for making this moment possible. (Applause.)
羅莎-帕克斯沒有擔任過民選公職。也不曾擁有財富，她的生活與權位相距甚遠。然而今天，她在塑造了美國發展歷程的人物中，佔據了應有的一席之地。我感謝所有使這一時刻成爲可能的人，尤其是國會黑人核心小組——它過去和現在的成員。（掌聲）

A childhood friend once said about Mrs. Parks, “Nobody ever bossed Rosa around and got away with it.” (Laughter.) That’s what an Alabama driver learned on December 1, 1955. Twelve years earlier, he had kicked Mrs. Parks off his bus simply because she entered through the front door when the back door was too crowded. He grabbed her sleeve and he pushed her off the bus. It made her mad enough, she would recall, that she avoided riding his bus for a while.
一位兒時的朋友曾這樣形容帕克斯夫人：“從來沒有人可以對羅莎-帕克斯頤指氣使而逍遙無事。”（笑聲）這也正是一位阿拉巴馬州司機在1955年12月1日所領會的。在那之前12年，他曾將帕克斯夫人趕下他的公交車，原因只是她在後門太擁擠時從前門上車。他抓住她的袖子，將她推下車。她後來回憶說，她如此氣憤以致有好一段時間不乘他的車。

And when they met again that winter evening in 1955, Rosa Parks would not be pushed. When the driver got up from his seat to insist that she give up hers, she would not be pushed. When he threatened to have her arrested, she simply replied, “You may do that.” And he did.
當他們於1955年那個冬天的晚上再次相遇時，羅莎-帕克斯是不會任人擺佈的。當司機從他的座位上起身，堅持要她讓座時，她不爲所動。當他威脅要將她逮捕時，她只回答說：“悉聽尊便。”司機果真如此行事。

A few days later, Rosa Parks challenged her arrest. A little-known pastor, new to town and only 26 years old, stood with her -- a man named Martin Luther King, Jr. So did thousands of Montgomery, Alabama commuters. They began a boycott -- teachers and laborers, clergy and domestics, through rain and cold and sweltering heat, day after day, week after week, month after month, walking miles if they had to, arranging carpools where they could, not thinking about the blisters on their feet, the weariness after a full day of work -- walking for respect, walking for freedom, driven by a solemn determination to affirm their God-given dignity.
幾天後，羅莎-帕克斯對被捕提出異議。一位鮮爲人知的牧師——剛到城裏不久，只有26歲——挺身支持她，這人就是馬丁-路德-金。數千名阿拉巴馬州蒙哥馬利市乘客也對她表示支持。他們開始聯合罷乘——教師和工人、教士和家傭，頂風冒雨，不畏嚴寒酷暑，日復一日，周復一週，月復一月，如果有必要就步行數裏，如果有可能就安排拼車，不顧腳上的水泡，不顧整日勞作後的疲憊——爲尊嚴而步行，爲自由而步行，維護他們天賦尊嚴的莊嚴決心在鼓勵他們向前。

Three hundred and eighty-five days after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, the boycott ended. Black men and women and children re-boarded the buses of Montgomery, newly desegregated, and sat in whatever seat happen to be open. (Applause.) And with that victory, the entire edifice of segregation, like the ancient walls of Jericho, began to slowly come tumbling down.
在羅莎-帕克斯拒絕讓座385天后，罷乘行動宣告結束。黑人男子、婦女和兒童重新乘坐廢除了種族隔離的蒙哥馬利市公交車，任意坐任何空座位。（掌聲）隨着這場勝利，整座種族隔離的大廈，像傑里科的古老城牆一樣，開始慢慢地坍塌。

It’s been often remarked that Rosa Parks’s activism didn’t begin on that bus. Long before she made headlines, she had stood up for freedom, stood up for equality -- fighting for voting rights, rallying against discrimination in the criminal justice system, serving in the local chapter of the NAACP. Her quiet leadership would continue long after she became an icon of the civil rights movement, working with Congressman Conyers to find homes for the homeless, preparing disadvantaged youth for a path to success, striving each day to right some wrong somewhere in this world.
人們常說，羅莎-帕克斯的社會行動並非開始於那輛公交車。早在成爲新聞人物之前，她就曾爲自由、爲平等挺身而出——爲爭取投票權奮鬥，爲反對刑事司法系統中的歧視呼籲，爲全國有色人種協進會的地方分會服務。她那無聲的帶頭作用在她成爲民權運動的象徵後長久持續——與國會議員科尼爾斯一道爲無家可歸者尋找住處，幫助弱勢青少年踏上成功之路，每天都在爲糾正世界某處的某種不公正而奮鬥。

And yet our minds fasten on that single moment on the bus -- Ms. Parks alone in that seat, clutching her purse, staring out a window, waiting to be arrested. That moment tells us something about how change happens, or doesn’t happen; the choices we make, or don’t make. “For now we see through a glass, darkly,” Scripture says, and it’s true. Whether out of inertia or selfishness, whether out of fear or a simple lack of moral imagination, we so often spend our lives as if in a fog, accepting injustice, rationalizing inequity, tolerating the intolerable.
然而，我們的記憶凝聚在公交車上的那個時刻——帕克斯女士獨自坐在座位上，緊握提包，眼睛凝視窗外，等待被捕。那個時刻向我們顯示了改變爲什麼會發生，或者不會發生；揭示着我們的選擇，或是不選擇。聖經說：“如今我們對着鏡子觀看，模糊不清。”這是真的。無論出於惰性還是自私，無論出於恐懼或只是缺乏道德想象力，我們常常像生活在迷霧中，接受不公正、文飾不平等、容忍不可容忍的情形。

Like the bus driver, but also like the passengers on the bus, we see the way things are -- children hungry in a land of plenty, entire neighborhoods ravaged by violence, families hobbled by job loss or illness -- and we make excuses for inaction, and we say to ourselves, that's not my responsibility, there’s nothing I can do.
就像那位公交車司機，但也像公交車上的乘客，我們視一切習以爲常——孩子們在魚米之鄉捱餓，整個社區被暴力蹂躪，家庭受累於失業和疾病——我們爲無動於衷找藉口，對自己說，那不是我的責任，我無能爲力。

Rosa Parks tell us there’s always something we can do. She tells us that we all have responsibilities, to ourselves and to one another. She reminds us that this is how change happens -- not mainly through the exploits of the famous and the powerful, but through the countless acts of often anonymous courage and kindness and fellow feeling and responsibility that continually, stubbornly, expand our conception of justice -- our conception of what is possible.
羅莎-帕克斯告訴我們，我們總能有所作爲。她告訴我們，我們每個人都有責任，對自己，也對他人。她提醒我們，改變是這樣到來的——不是主要靠名人權勢的豐功偉績，而是通過無數往往默默無聞的富於勇氣、仁慈、手足情和責任感的行動，這些行動在持續地、不屈不饒地讓我們拓寬正義的理念——和我們對可能性的認識。

Rosa Parks’s singular act of disobedience launched a movement. The tired feet of those who walked the dusty roads of Montgomery helped a nation see that to which it had once been blind. It is because of these men and women that I stand here today. It is because of them that our children grow up in a land more free and more fair; a land truer to its founding creed.
羅莎-帕克斯獨自一人的抵制行動引發了一場運動。那些在蒙哥馬利市塵土飛揚的街道上行走的疲憊腳步，幫助一個國家看清了它曾經視而不見的情景。正是因爲這些男女公民，我今天才站在這裏。正是因爲他們，我們的孩子才能在一片更加自由、更加公平的土地上成長；一片現在更忠實於其創始理念的土地。

And that is why this statue belongs in this hall -- to remind us, no matter how humble or lofty our positions, just what it is that leadership requires; just what it is that citizenship requires. Rosa Parks would have turned 100 years old this month. We do well by placing a statue of her here. But we can do no greater honor to her memory than to carry forward the power of her principle and a courage born of conviction.
而這正是這座雕像屹立於這座大廳的原因——它讓我們看到，無論我們的地位如何卑微或高貴，這纔是領導作用的內涵；公民責任的內涵。這個月是羅莎-帕克斯誕辰100週年。我們在這裏落成她的雕像恰逢其時。但是，將她的原則力量和源自信念的勇氣發揚光大纔是對她的最好紀念。

May God bless the memory of Rosa Parks, and may God bless these United States of America. (Applause.)
願上帝保佑對羅莎-帕克斯的懷念，願上帝保佑美利堅合衆國。（掌聲）