The Trump administration celebrated Black History month at the White House on Thursday. One of their guests was Gertrude Jane Holliday Stone, a civil rights leader who refused to be segregated when riding the bus.
"In 1955, I boarded the train from Tennessee to Texas, for the Christmas holidays, to visit my parents. The conductor got on the train, he looked at my ticket and he says, 'You got to move to the Jim Crow coach.' And I looked at him and I said, 'I'm not moving,'" she recounted.
Holiday Stone said the conductor went and got another man, who she assumed was the breakman. The second man told her the same thing, that she had to go to the Jim Crow coach.
"And I told both of them, 'I'm not moving,'" she recounted. "When we got to Lake Charles, Louisiana, he had the city policeman to board the train. And now the three of them are telling me to move to the Jim Crow coach."
She said the three men took all of her belongings, including her coat, and she still refused to move.
According to the civil rights icon, it's important to "do something for humanity" before you die. She turned to President Trump and thanked him for everything he has done for humanity.
GertrudeJane Holliday Stone shared her powerful story of refusing to give up her train seat in 1955. pic.twitter.com/ZBMc2QrqW6
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) February 28, 2020
As President Trump hugged Holliday Stone, she turned to the audience, and said, “I don’t believe in abortions. He doesn’t, either," the Washington Times reported.
“You might be killing an Einstein. You might be killing a Nobel laureate," she told the crowd. "And you might be killing somebody that’s going to find the cure for the coronavirus."