How much pressure could it be on a black man to have offended a civil rights icon? Hopefully, the superduo won’t buckle under pressure and start crying in front of the “mother of the civil rights movement.”
After five years, Rosa Parks will finally get her day in court with Andre and Big Boi also known as Outkast. The case stems from the 1998 song “Rosa Parks.” According to Mrs. Parks, her name and likeness were used without permission.

The lyrics, “Hush that fuss/ Everybody move to the back of the bus”, Rosa Parks lawyers, including Johnnie Cochran, feel that Outkast and their record company exploited her name for the sake of music.

“The fact that defendants cry ‘artist’ and ‘symbol’ as reasons for appropriating Rosa Parks’ name for a song title does not absolve them from potential liability for, in the words of Shakespeare, filching Rosa Parks’ good name,” the three-judge panel of the US court of Appeals said.

Since 1998, “Aquemini” the album featuring the song, has sold more than three million copies. A trial date has been set for January 10th. Although the details for the trial have not been completed, Rosa Parks proposed list of witnesses that may be called which include: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, Coretta Scott King, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, U.S. Appeals Judge Damon Keith, Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, U.S. Rep. John Conyers and Dearborn Mayor Michael Guido.