Rosa Parks Rap Tribute

As a boy growing up in New Orleans, some of the first words Cyril Neville learned to read were Colored Only and Whites Only. His mother made sure her young sons knew the meaning of those stark reminders of the segregated South so--as he put it--”you wouldn’t stumble into death.”

In 1955, when Cyril was 7, a Montgomery, Ala., woman named Rosa Parks sparked the first skirmish of the Civil Rights movement when she refused to give up her seat in the “whites only” section of a Montgomery public bus.

The impromptu act triggered a 13-month bus boycott that catapulted Parks and a young Baptist minister named Martin Luther King Jr. to fame and eventually led to the outlawing of discrimination on local public transportation. Cyril Neville vividly recalls his mother’s reaction to the news of Parks’ act of defiance: “ ‘Well, thank you, Miss Rosa.’ ”

Nearly 35 years later, Cyril and his siblings--known to the pop world as the Neville Brothers--have set their mother’s response to music. The legendary New Orleans group have recorded “Sister Rosa,” a moving, rap-style tribute to Rosa Parks that will appear on the band’s upcoming A&M; Records album, “Yellow Moon.”

“The song wasn’t even intended for commercial release at first,” said Charles Neville by phone from New Orleans, where the band has been playing two gigs each night during Mardi Gras week. “We work with kids at a local youth center, but they take for granted the conditions and rights we have now--as if they’re God-given rights. They don’t know the scuffling and protesting that went on to achieve them. In fact, what inspired Cyril was seeing how these kids knew all the words to every rap song, but didn’t know anything about their own history.”

As musicians who traveled the South in the ‘50s and ‘60s, The Nevilles experienced the perils of racism firsthand. “All the public places were segregated here--parks, hotels, bus stations,” Neville said. “Even the musicians couldn’t be integrated, so you had black bands and white ones. When we’d have after-hours jams in the French Quarter, they’d have to lock the doors before the black guys could come in and sit in with the white guys.”

Outside of New Orleans, everyone’s guard was up. “You always had to have a fear of white people,” Neville explained. “If there was a misunderstanding, even the simplest encounter, like stopping at a gas station, could turn into a matter of life and death.”

In 1958, Neville was on the road with “Bony Moronie” composer Larry Williams, who drove a Mark IV Lincoln Continental with a decal in back that read, “This Vehicle Stops for All Blondes.”

“We stopped at a Shell station in Kissimee, Fla. But when the attendant went back to give us some gas and saw that sticker, he tore off his overalls and showed us his badge. It turns out he’s the deputy sheriff too! And he says he knew we were speeding before we came to town. So he called the sheriff, who showed up with a gun and before we know it, the sheriff has put on a black robe--he’s the judge too!

“He took out his gavel and said, ‘I’m gonna get you niggers who come down here, speeding through our town, endangering our childrens’ lives.’ And he fined us $150 a piece and locked us in the storeroom until Larry could wire New York for some money. That’s what it was like down there if you got stopped with a sassy, New York bumper sticker.”

To help promote “Sister Rosa,” the band is making a video this week that will re-enact the original Parks incident, with the Nevilles seated in the back of the bus, singing the song. Directed by Jonathan Demme, it will co-star Spike Lee’s sister, Joie, as Rosa Parks, and feature archival footage of the Montgomery bus boycott.

“We think it’s important to dramatize the courage of what Rosa Parks did in whatever way we can,” said Charles Neville. “We grew up during a time of repression for black people--and despite all the changes, we know there’s still room for improvement. And what Rosa Parks, an ordinary person, did, says that anyone can inspire change.