Rosa Parks family wants to segregate Proof

[ThaTruth]

I was just looking at the news on bet.com...and I stumbled upon this article...


PROOF’S FINAL RESTING PLACE STIRS CONTROVERSY

The location of the final resting place of slain Detroit rapper Proof is drawing the ire of some. Proof, who was buried last week in Detroit’s Woodlawn Cemetery Chapel, now rests in the same mausoleum where civil rights icon Rosa Parks can be found. Some who were close to Parks are speaking out against the arrangement, which they have deemed disrespectful. Parks’ nephew, William McCauley told The Detroit Free Press that he felt the arrangement was inappropriate. “I tell you, this is a lot to take in…She was a person of non-violence. And obviously this young rapper had a different creed when it comes to resolving issues,” McCauley said.


As previously reported, Proof was shot and killed in a Detroit nightclub on April following a dispute with Keith Bender. Proof, born Deshaun Holton, allegedly pistol-whipped Bender, before standing over him and shooting him once in the face. Bender died several days later on April 18. Despite the violent ending of the D12 member, Benjamin Chavis, co-founder of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, believes that Parks would not have turned the 32-year-old rapper away. “She sacrificed for freedom, justice and peace and she lived her whole life around those principles and I think it’s obvious she could not agree with discrimination in life or death,” Chavis said. Interscope Records spokesman Dennis Dennehy declined to comment.

 

[EDouble]

wow.

 

[DrugBa11ad]

Man, those people are on some dumb shit.

How are you going to turn ANY young black male away that was killed through violence in an oppressed community. Rosa Parks fought oppression, she would have been fine with it I bet, but who knows.

 

[Diaz]

Who...gives... a FUCK.

 

[roaches]

The actual Detroit Free Press article:
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060426/NEWS01/604260437

Rosa Parks, Proof share Woodlawn mausoleum
It's insult to rights leader, some say

BY JOE SWICKARD and CECIL ANGEL
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS

April 26, 2006

photo

Proof's given name, Deshaun Dupree Holton, is inscribed on the wall of the mausoleum where he is entombed near Rosa Parks at Woodlawn Cemetery in Detroit. (AMY LEANG/Detroit Free Press)

People wanting to pay homage to civil rights icon Rosa Parks at Detroit's Woodlawn Cemetery Chapel named in her honor will now have to pass by the crypt of rapper Proof, who was killed in a shootout in an after-hours bar.

The rapper's crypt -- with golden lettering spelling out his given name of Deshaun Dupree Holton set above his professional name Proof -- is just inside the main entrance of the gothic stone chapel. Parks' crypt is just around a corner from Proof's, in the most prominent section of the building.

"I tell you, this is a lot to take in; I'm pretty much stunned," said Parks' nephew William McCauley.

"I don't see the appropriateness of someone like this young rapper being buried with Rosa Parks," McCauley said. "She was a person of nonviolence. And obviously this young rapper had a different creed when it comes to resolving issues."

The burial of a performer whose music could be a raw and rude reflection of tough urban life so close to Parks, also jarred McCauley's attorney, Lawrence Pepper of Farmington Hills. Pepper said Parks -- whose arrest in 1955 for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Ala., city bus sparked a nonviolent revolution that helped sweep away legal racial segregation -- exemplified dignity and steely resolve.

"I don't think his music is anything like Mrs. Parks," said Pepper. "To me, it's disrespect to Rosa Parks."

Benjamin Chavis, former executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and a cofounder of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, said he had worked with both Parks and Proof. He said Parks would not have turned Proof away.

She "sacrificed for freedom, justice and peace and she lived her whole life around those principles," he said. "And I think it's obvious she would not agree with discrimination in life or death."

Proof's attorney David Gorosh referred questions to Interscope, Proof's recording label. Interscope spokesman Dennis Dennehy declined comment.

Repeated calls to officials of Mikocem, the parent company of Woodlawn Cemetery, were not returned.

On Tuesday, a vase of white flowers before Proof's crypt could be seen through the chapel's locked doors.

Proof died in a gunfight at the C.C.C. nightclub on 8 Mile, which started, police said, in a dispute over a pool game. Proof allegedly pistol-whipped and fatally shot Army veteran Keith Bender Jr. before being killed himself by Mario Etheridge.

Etheridge, Bender's cousin, faces a preliminary examination today in Detroit 36th District Court for two gun-related felonies. He was not charged with Proof's death.

While some hailed Proof -- who helped craft Eminem into an international cultural figure that transcended race -- as a valued Detroit music ambassador, law enforcement officials often viewed him otherwise. They pointed to Proof as a close associate of Thelmon Stuckey III, a major drug gangster serving a life sentence for a drug-related murder, and someone with a history of public brawls.

Naming the chapel, built in 1895, for Parks earlier this year and setting a new price list for crypt and cremation urn spaces there also were met with some controversy. McCauley feared the naming and new prices were driven by mercenary considerations.

Four other occupied crypts could be seen Tuesday in the section of the chapel where Proof is buried.

Individual crypts in the chapel were priced at $24,275 after the renaming and renovation. They were $17,000 before space was donated for Parks, her husband and her mother after Parks' death.

Company officials, at that time, said the prices were set to help cover structural and security upgrades and were in line with making it a premier burial site. Woodlawn has long been a site for famous Detroiters, including the Fords and other auto families.

Mikocem is under investigation by the Michigan Attorney General's Office, but spokesman Rusty Hills declined to reveal details of the probe.

In Parks' final years, a tangle of lawsuits grew around the use and protection of her name. In 1999 after OutKast, a hip-hop duo, used her name without permission in a song, OutKast was sued on Parks' behalf in a case that was later dismissed.

In 2004, a second suit was filed seeking $5 billion from record companies and bookstore chains that sold the recording. The settlement in that suit has been sealed.

There never has been a formal arrangement between Woodlawn and the Raymond and Rosa Parks Institute for Self Development. Cemetery officials said they had planned to voluntarily donate 2% of sales in the chapel to the organization Parks founded to provide youth programs.

However, cemetery officials said that Elaine Steele, Parks' longtime associate and caregiver, told them the institute did not want any funds from the sale of space within the chapel.

Jon Gandelot, an attorney for the Parks estate, said comments about occupants of the final resting places within the chapel are perhaps better left to a higher authority.

"It's really not my position to judge," Gandelot said.

 

[EDouble]

who are others thatre in the same spot with proof & rosa?

 

[Hamptonlegacy]

So he's just in the same mausoleum? With all due respect to Rosa Parks, what's the big deal? he is around the corner. Does it really harm people who visit her to pass by Proof's section of the wall? Doesn't he deserve to be in the same building despite how his life may have ended? That's insane.