Exclusive: Jack Cashill tells of 1994 assault on civil-rights icon in her central Detroit home

By Jack Cashill – Published September 6, 2023 at 7:10pm – WND

In my new book, “Untenable: The True Story of White Ethnic Flight from America’s Cities,” I make the argument that those who could flee the growing disorder of post-1960s urban America, fled.

Only whites were shamed for fleeing, but blacks fled as well. In the book, I tell the stories of Whitney Houston’s mother, Cissy, Kanye West’s mother, Donna, and Michelle Obama’s mother, Marian Robinson.

All made the conscious decision to pull their children from harm’s way when their neighborhood and its schools broke down around them. “Call it black flight or whatever,” said West after her son was mugged, “I was ready to go.”

One story I did not tell involved famed civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks. I did not tell it because it had faded from public consciousness as the media surely intended it to.

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The New York Times broke the story on Aug. 31, 1994, headlined, “Rosa Parks Robbed and Beaten.” That the editors relegated the story to the bottom lower corner of page 12 told the savvy reader that this was a crime to which attention ought not be paid.

“A lone man broke in the rear door of Mrs. Parks’s home in central Detroit between 8 and 8:20 this evening,” the Times reported. “When she went downstairs to investigate, a man was inside her house, reeking of alcohol, and he struck her.” Parks was 81 at the time.

After a brief hospitalization, the Times tells us, Parks “moved into a high-rise apartment building.” In fact, Little Caesars founder Mike Ilitch rescued her from her neighborhood and quietly paid her rent until Parks died in 2005.

The absence of any reporting on the attacker’s race alerted the reader that he was not white. The Times would later report that the perp in question, Joseph Skipper, was sentenced to 8 to 15 years for the assault and robbery.

Times columnist Bob Herbert was one of the rare black voices to call attention to the core problem behind Parks’ beating. “We bought into her defiance. Oh yes, we liked that so much we made it fashionable,” he wrote.

“By the mid-’60s defiance had swept the land,” he continued. “But we never mastered the inner strength, the core values and the self-respect that gave the defiance of Mrs. Parks such power.”

This was not a message that held much interest for the vestiges of civil rights establishment or their cheerleaders in the media. They much preferred the myth of white guilt and black innocence.

Upon Parks’ death, Skipper, still in prison, played right into that myth, making a great show of his contrition. As the Times reported, “He dreams of redemption.”

Said Skipper, “I will go down in history as the man who robbed Rosa Parks. I’m sorry that she died. I was hoping to get out in time to tell her I was sorry.”

Skipper eventually got out, but he did not waste a lot of time apologizing. In the first few weeks of 2020, he went on a spree of break-ins and home invasions in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He was 54 years old.

In the most serious case, Skipper broke into the home of a 74-year-old woman, assaulted her and robbed her of $50, roughly the same amount he took from Parks.

In the summer of 2020 George Floyd provided a lot of cover for America’s chronic felons, at least the black ones. Racial profiling, systemic racism, mass incarceration – these were the problems plaguing America.

In institutions throughout America, the petty tyrants of the DEI movement drilled these messages into the heads of white people too “fragile” to protest.

They taught their captive audiences about Rosa Parks’ brave stand in 1955 during the Montgomery bus boycott, but the part about her beating, the part about Skipper’s return to his pathetic tradecraft, these they overlooked.

“We are in the dark night of the post-civil rights era,” Herbert concluded his 1994 column. “The wars against segregation have been won, but we are lost. With the violence and degradation into which so many of our people have fallen, we have disgraced the legacy of Rosa Parks.”

Barack Obama has had nearly 20 years to say something nearly half that brave, but he has not and never will.

Jack Cashill’s new book, “Untenable: The True Story of White Ethnic Flight from America’s Cities,” is now available in all formats.

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Inmate Apologizes for Robbing Rosa Parks

By The Associated Press

• March 20, 2006 – as published in the New York Times

MUNISING, Mich., March 19 – A man who beat Rosa Parks and took $53 from her in a break-in at her Detroit home in 1994 says he dreams of redemption.

In a prison interview published Sunday in The Detroit News, the man, Joseph Skipper, 40, repeatedly apologized for the attack and said he cried when he learned that Ms. Parks had died in October.

Mr. Skipper is serving an 8- to 15-year sentence at the Alger Maximum Correctional Facility in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

“I will go down in history as the man who robbed Rosa Parks,” Mr. Skipper said. “I’m sorry that she died. I was hoping to get out in time to tell her I was sorry.”

Mr. Skipper, who broke into Ms. Parks’s home, hit her on the face and robbed her, blamed a drug problem for the crime. He pleaded guilty and apologized at his 1995 sentencing.

Ms. Parks was treated at a hospital after the assault and moved into a high-rise apartment building. She died in Detroit on Oct. 24 at 92.

Man who assaulted Rosa Parks in 1994 faces charges in similar Grand Rapids case

Joseph Skipper is accused of assaulting an elderly Grand Rapids woman during a New Year’s Day home invasion, which mirrors his 1994 attack on Rosa Parks in Detroit.

Author: John Hogan – Published: 6:23 PM EDT March 19, 2020 – wzzm13 news

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A man who went to prison for assaulting civil rights legend Rosa Parks during a 1994 robbery is back behind bars for what police say was an assault on an elderly Grand Rapids woman during a New Year’s Day home invasion.

Joseph N. Skipper gained notoriety for breaking into Parks’ home in August of 1994, hitting her on the face and robbing her of $53.  A judge in Detroit sentenced him to eight to 15 years in prison.

Skipper, 54, is now facing five felony charges stemming from break-ins and home invasions over a two-week period in Grand Rapids.

“There’s been those people who just, they specialize in that,’’ Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker said.

Three of the felony charges are for home invasion. The most serious, home invasion – first degree, occurred early New Year’s Day on Alpine Avenue NW near Leonard Street.

A 74-year-old woman told police she was in bed when she heard someone force their way into her home. She confronted the man, who then assaulted her and demanded money, according to Grand Rapids police.

The woman gave the intruder $50 from her purse before he fled out the door.

Investigators determined the intruder got inside through a window which he had broken. Officers canvassed the neighborhood with a tracking dog but were unable to find the suspect.

Blood recovered at the scene was analyzed, and it provided a DNA match to Skipper earlier this month.

Skipper, who was already in the Kent County Jail for some of the other break-ins, was charged with first-degree home invasion, a 20-year felony.

During an appearance earlier this week in Grand Rapids District Court, he waived his probable cause hearing, sending the matter to Kent County Circuit Court.

In a March 12 Facebook post, Grand Rapids police congratulated several officers and crime scene technicians “for their great work in bringing this dangerous person to justice.’’

“The elderly victim personally thanked officers for their kindness and professionalism the night of the incident and how they had a calming effect on her during this traumatic episode,’’ according to the Facebook post.

Skipper was 28 when he broke into Rosa Parks’ home, beating the then-81-year-old woman and robbing her of $53. She was treated at a local hospital and released several hours later.

Parks helped launch the civil rights movement in 1955 when she refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man. She moved to Detroit in 1957 and died there in 2005.

Defense attorney Valerie Foster said she is aware of Skipper’s criminal past involving Rosa Parks, but declined comment on his criminal history.

“My role as his counsel is to represent him zealously through the process involving all of his current cases,’’ Foster said.

Becker, the Kent County prosecutor, said Skipper’s criminal past has him facing additional prison time if Skipper is convicted of the pending felonies.

“We’re going to take a look at his complete criminal history,’’ Becker said. “He’s demonstrated a pattern, over his lifetime, being a multiple felony offender that he needs to go away for quite a bit of time.’’