DETROIT – Civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks has dementia and should not be forced to answer questions in her lawsuit over a rap song named for her, her lawyers said in a court filing.
Parks, 91, rarely has been seen in public since 2001, when she canceled a meeting with President Bush.
Her lawyers said this summer she has been in frail health, but Monday’s court filing is the first public description of her health problems.
Parks’ lawyer Gregory Reed said her dementia, or severe mental impairment, “comes and goes.” He said Parks is well cared for at her Detroit home.
Parks’ lawsuit says the 1998 song “Rosa Parks” by hip-hop group OutKast violated her publicity and trademark rights and defamed her. It also says OutKast and record company BMG exploited her name for commercial purposes. OutKast has been dismissed as a defendant.
Defense lawyers have asked to interview Parks to explain her claims of emotional and mental distress because of the song. They will be able to question Parks’ doctor, Joel Steinberg, about her medical condition in early October.
In an Aug. 16 letter, Steinberg’s lawyer said the doctor believes Parks “cannot testify or participate in any court proceeding” and referred to six pages of supporting medical records, including three medical visits in 2002 and late 2003.
“Page 1 is a transfer note, undated, which sets forth a number of diagnoses and makes specific reference to the dementia,” lawyer Richard Gianino wrote.
Parks was 42 when she refused to give up her seat on a city bus in Montgomery, Ala., in 1955. She was jailed and fined $14. Her arrest triggered a 381-day boycott of the bus system organized by a then little-known Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. She became known as “the mother of the civil rights movement.”
