Alabama ? Alabama lawmakers are considering pardoning hundreds, possibly thousands, of people who were arrested decades ago for violating Alabama’s segregation laws.

The idea of a mass pardon gained traction after the death last year of civil rights icon Rosa Parks, who had refused to give up her bus seat to a white man half a century earlier.

Even though the law allowing segregated seating on city buses eventually was overturned, Parks’ conviction is still on the record, said Rep. Thad McClammy.

His proposed “Rosa Parks Act” would pardon everyone arrested under the state’s segregation laws, which date back to the state’s 1901 constitution. A House committee approved the bill Thursday, sending it to the full House for debate.

The old segregation laws required that blacks attend separate schools and use separate water fountains and theater entrances, and made it illegal for whites and blacks to marry, among other things.