An Unlikely Candidate

December 2, 2014December 2, 2014 by nance In Video, Writing Leave a comment

Did you all know that yesterday was the anniversary of the day Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on the bus? I didn’t until I saw something about it in my Facebook feed last night. I read a little about her and I was surprised to discover that she wasn’t actually the first person to do it! Here’s what I found on Wikipedia…

On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks refused to obey bus driver James F. Blake’s order that she give up her seat in the colored section to a white passenger, after the white section was filled. Parks was not the first person to resist bus segregation.

Others had taken similar steps, including Irene Morgan in 1946, Sarah Louise Keys in 1955, and the members of the Browder v. Gayle lawsuit (Claudette Colvin, Aurelia Browder, Susie McDonald, and Mary Louise Smith) who were arrested in Montgomery months before Parks.

So although there were at least 6 other courageous women before her that paved the way, the NAACP decided Rosa Parks would be the best candidate to possibly fight the system and win. Even though her case ended up stagnating in court, her act of courage and defiance went on to become one of the quintessential symbols of the modern Civil Rights Movement and Rosa herself became an icon the world over. You can read and watch more about her here.

“People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn’t true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.” -Rosa Parks

This morning I discovered this tribute to Parks by poet Micah Bournes. It’s his piece from the Justice Conference last year and it’s so prescient for us today as we remember Rosa Parks and simultaneously grapple with Ferguson.

“If you want to be just,” Bournes says, “Bathe yourselves in the blood of the innocent. Stand beside them in their pain.” And at 3:30, when he starts listing where we will march, he can add Ferguson to that list.

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