27th & 28th October, 2005
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Photo by Edward McKuen 9/24/2005
A Thought for Today
Be a great man by being a good brother to
other men.
Photo courtesy Academy of
Achievement
ROSA PARKS 1913-2005
It’s hard to believe that for the first 55 years of the 20th Century The
United States of America was a segregated society. That began to change
as a result of a single individuals act of defiance on December 1, 1955.
Nothing would be the same in my country from that day forward.
The Story: In Montgomery, Alabama, a black seamstress named Rosa Parks
was on her way back home after a long day at work. She boarded a bus and
found a vacant seat. Of course, if there weren’t enough seats on the bus
for Caucasians, African Americans were supposed to give up their seats;
as far as anyone could remember that had been the law in Montgomery,
Alabama.
The bus filled up quickly and Rosa was expected to relinquish her seat.
But that day Rosa was more tired than usual and just plain tired of
feeling like a second-class citizen. Rosa Parks refused to budge. In
short order, Mrs. Parks was arrested, fingerprinted and fined $10 for
violating a city ordinance and $4.00 in court costs.
The truth, as she later explained, was that she was tired of being
humiliated, of having to adapt to the byzantine rules, some codified as
law and others passed on as tradition, that reinforced the position of
blacks as something less than full human beings.
"She was fed up," said Elaine Steele, a longtime friend and executive
director of the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development.
"She was in her 40's. She was not a child. There comes a point where you
say, 'No, I'm a full citizen, too. This is not the way I should be
treated.' "
Her act of civil disobedience, what seems a simple gesture of defiance
so many years later, was in fact a dangerous, even reckless move in
1950's Alabama. In refusing to move, she risked legal sanction and
perhaps even physical harm, but she also set into motion something far
beyond the control of the city authorities. Mrs. Parks clarified for
people far beyond Montgomery the cruelty and humiliation inherent in the
laws and customs of segregation.
That moment on the Cleveland Avenue bus also turned a very private woman
into a reluctant symbol and torchbearer in the quest for racial equality
and of a movement that became increasingly organized and sophisticated
in making demands and getting results.
For years blacks had complained, and Mrs. Parks was no exception. "My
resisting being mistreated on the bus did not begin with that particular
arrest," she said. "I did a lot of walking in Montgomery."
After a confrontation in 1943, a driver named James Blake ejected Mrs.
Parks from his bus. As fate would have it, he was driving the Cleveland
Avenue bus on Dec. 1, 1955. He demanded that four blacks give up their
seats in the middle section so a lone white man could sit. Three of them
complied.
Recalling the incident for "Eyes on the Prize," a 1987 public television
series on the civil rights movement, Mrs. Parks said: "When he saw me
still sitting, he asked if I was going to stand up and I said, 'No, I'm
not.' And he said, 'Well, if you don't stand up, I'm going to have to
call the police and have you arrested.' I said, 'You may do that.' "
Her arrest was the answer to prayers for the Women's Political Council,
which was set up in 1946 in response to the mistreatment of black bus
riders, and for E. D. Nixon, a leading advocate of equality for blacks
in Montgomery.
Blacks had been arrested, and even killed, for disobeying bus drivers.
They had begun to build a case around a 15-year-old girl's arrest for
refusing to give up her seat, and Mrs. Parks had been among those
raising money for the girl's defense. But when they learned that the
girl was pregnant, they decided that she was an unsuitable symbol for
their cause.
Mrs. Parks, on the other hand, was regarded as "one of the finest
citizens of Montgomery - not one of the finest Negro citizens - but one
of the finest citizens of Montgomery," Dr. King said.
Mrs. Park’s arrest resulted in a black boycott of the city’s bus line—a
boycott that ended 381 days later when the bus line caved in, on the
heels of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that segregation in transportation
was unconstitutional.
Meanwhile, the bus boycott triggered a wave of protest and freedom
marches that captured national attention and nearly overnight catapulted
Rosa and the young minister who had initiated the boycott to National
and International fame. The minister was Martin Luther King Jr.
The civil rights movement was born and with it the determination of the
majority of Americans that segregation was evil, unjust and had no place
in a country that prided itself on being democratic for everyone. Rosa
Parks had challenged America to re-examine its institutions and values
—and the country emerged that much stronger for it.
Born Rosa Louise McCauley on February 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Alabama,
Parks was the first child of James and Leona Edwards McCauley; her
brother Sylvester was born in 1915. The family later moved to Pine
Level, Alabama, where Rosa grew up attending rural schools.
When Rosa completed her education at Pine Level at age 11, her mother
enrolled her in Montgomery Industrial School for Girls. From there Rosa
went on the Alabama State Teacher’s College High School, although her
grandmother’s illness and subsequent death prevented her from graduating
with the rest of her class.
Rosa married Raymond Parks in 1932. Raymond supported Rosa’s desire to
complete her formal education, and she went on to receive her high
school diploma in 1934. The couple worked together in the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) programs. Rosa
became a secretary and later a youth leader of the local branch of the
NAACP; she was preparing for a major youth conference at the time of her
arrest.
The incident in Montgomery transformed Rosa Parks into a national figure
and a major role model. She went on to work for U.S. Rep. John Conyers
of Michigan. After Raymond’s death, she co-founded the Rosa and Raymond
Parks Institute for Self Development. She also co-authored four
books—”Rosa Parks: My Story” (with Jim Haskins), “Quiet Strength” (with
Gregory J. Reed), “Dear Mrs. Parks: A Dialogue with Today’s Youth” (with
Gregory J. Reed), and “I Am Rosa Parks” (with Jim Haskins).
Hundreds of American institutions paid tribute to this remarkable woman
during her lifetime: Mrs. Parks received a number of honorary doctoral
degrees, countless plaques, awards and citations, and keys to several
cities. Among her honors were the NAACP’s Springarn Medal, the UAW’s
Social Justice Award, the Martin Luther King Jr. Non-Violent Peace
Prize, the Roger Joseph Prize from Hebrew Union College, and the
Presidential Medal of Freedom.
I had met Mrs. Parks briefly when I joined the Alabama Freedom Marches
during the late 1950’s and I didn’t come face to face with her until
February of 1985 when we were both in New York to appear on a TV
special, “Night of a Hundred Stars.”
It was the afternoon of the program and a smiling but breathless Dorothy
Bridges approached me in the vast Radio City Music Hall (where the show
would emanate from later that evening) and said, “I just met Rosa Parks
in the lobby!” I rushed back into the lobby hoping to catch a glimpse of
her. There she was standing with friends in the gilded rococo entrance
to the auditorium. Her first words to me were, “This is a long way from
Montgomery, isn’t it Rod?”
She had remembered me, I almost wept.
A Rosa Parks, Sojourner Truth or Harriet Tubman seems to arrive just
when they are needed most. Each goes on proving that one human being can
always make a difference.
RM 10/24/2005 12:18AM PDST
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