The civil rights movement had long been brewing under Jim Crow and in the aftermath of World War II, when it became clear that the freedom and equality Americans would die for abroad was not afforded them all at home.
But it was the simplest act of civil disobedience from a woman of little renown that really launched the movement, that would become a formal resistance, that would become a revolution.
Rosa Parks was not famous. She was not a politician or a minister. She was a woman. A woman of great conviction and great courage.
On December 1, 1955, the humble seamstress boarded a Montgomery bus after a long day of work. It was a bus she had taken many times before.
But when it happened that there were not enough seats to accommodate all the white passengers in the “white section” of the bus, and the bus driver ordered Parks and several others to hand over their seats, Parks refused. She said, “No.” And that simple no in the face of generations of pressure, oppression, and cultural norms, planted deep the seed of a new oak of righteousness.
The bus driver said he would call the police if Parks didn’t give up her seat. She held her purse, held her ground, held her composure. “You may do that,” she said.
She could not have known the inertia that would follow, that continues in new and powerful ways to this day. But that was not the point. The point was not to begin a movement. The point was to stand firm. Her stand was was not meant to change the world, but a stand upon principles, a prophetic stand, can do just that.
Days later, challenging the charge against her, she was accompanied by another young visionary, Martin Luther King, Jr. Together, and with thousands of others, they launched the Montgomery bus boycott, and with it a mighty chapter of the civil rights movement.
It was such a simple act with such profound consequences.
A decade later, at the Alabama Freedom March, Parks had become known as the mother of the movement. Here is how she summed things up:
As a very small child, I had to hide from the Ku Klux Klan to keep from getting killed or thinking I was going to be killed. My family were deprived of the land that they owned and driven off it after they had worked and paid for it. I did not have the opportunity to attend school as many have and I am handicapped in every way, but I am expected to a first-class citizen. I want to be one. I have struggled hard during my early days. I will always be thankful for the NAACP for giving me some direction to try to channel my activities for a better way of life. I am also very thankful for Dr. Martin Luther King who came to Montgomery with his nonviolent, Christian attitude and loving your enemies. Of course, last few days in Selma, actually, I almost lost the faith. I almost didn’t come here today because so many people told me not to come here. And I said to myself, I could not come here, seeing what had happened in Selma, armed with only love. However, I came here with a hope and a faith, and you have given me back that faith today. Also, I want to say that, through the compliments of someone, we were given – showered – leaflets about the Communist school, that particular school where they accused Dr. King of being a student. He was not a student, but I was, and that particular school, Myles Horton, is responsible for me today not hating every white person I see. I learned at that time and at that place that there are decent people of every race and color. We are not in a struggle of black against white, but wrong and right, right against wrong.
She grew up through unspeakable trials. She aspired to upright citizenship. She almost lost the faith. But the community helped her keep it. And what began in the simplest act of civil disobedience blossomed into a grand arc of social reconstruction.
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