It all began when someone was too tired to give up their seat on the bus.
That’s how Rosa Parks entered history, and if the American Civil Rights movement of the 20th century can be said to have an official starting point, it begins with Ms. Parks: by all accounts, a quiet & serene woman who never raised her voice.
Parks’ moment in history began in December 1955 when she refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama. Her arrest triggered a 381-day boycott of the bus system by blacks that was organized by a 26-year-old Baptist minister, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
The boycott led to a court ruling desegregating public transportation in Montgomery, but it wasn’t until the 1964 Civil Rights Act that all public accommodations nationwide were desegregated.
And now she’s gone. Another iconic character from the text books & documentaries of my student days, passing from the realm of flesh and blood into the realm of memory, folklore, and history. A woman who’s ordinary reaction led to extraordinary action. She changed the world…simply by wanting to fall asleep on her commute home. Who says one person can’t change the future!
And yet…I wonder how many of US would have been as stubborn and brave as she had been? I worry that the time of stubborn-but-brave people is quickly disappearing…and that’s sad.
