What are you saying?
Column
Dominic Nolasco
Issue date: 10/27/05 Section: Opinion
- Page 1 of 1
Rosa Parks, the pivotal catalyst for the Montgomery, Ala., Bus Boycott, died earlier this week at the age of 92. Parks, most famous for refusing to give up her seat to move to the back of a bus for a white man, was arrested and convicted of violating the segregation laws and fined $10, plus $4 for court fees.
Her actions later helped a young black preacher named Martin Luther King Jr., who was pastor at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, take on the Civil Rights fight. King was later chosen to head the Montgomery Improvement Association, the founding organization for the bus boycott.
King, later wrote in his 1958 book "Stride Towards Freedom," that "Mrs. Parks' arrest was the precipitating factor rather than the cause of the protest," and that "the cause lay deep in the record of similar injustices."
It was these actions that Parks' undertook that ultimately led to a bus boycott, which lasted nearly 13 months, as blacks mounted a successful Supreme Court challenge to the Jim Crow laws.
In an interview by Howell Raines for the book "My Soul is Rested: Movement Days in the Deep South Remembered" (1977), Parks' recalled the request from the bus driver to leave her seat:
"He got off the bus and came back shortly. A few minutes later, two policemen got on the bus, and they approached me and asked if the driver had asked me to stand up, and I said yes, and they wanted to know why I didn't. I told them I didn't think I should have to stand up... They placed me under arrest then and had me to get in the police car, and I was taken to jail."
Dr. Bobby Vaughn, director of the Office of Mission and Diversity, commented on the life of Parks, saying that "she was so inspirational in making people realize that fighting against racial oppression isn't something that just leaders do.
"Ordinary people have a strong role to play. She was an ordinary person who fought back."
The fight back eventually forced America to face its segregation laws and the climate that many citizens in the South were living under. Free but not yet equal, Park's actions on that bus, proved to be a focal point for blacks, as they pushed for equality in America.
Her actions later helped a young black preacher named Martin Luther King Jr., who was pastor at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, take on the Civil Rights fight. King was later chosen to head the Montgomery Improvement Association, the founding organization for the bus boycott.
King, later wrote in his 1958 book "Stride Towards Freedom," that "Mrs. Parks' arrest was the precipitating factor rather than the cause of the protest," and that "the cause lay deep in the record of similar injustices."
It was these actions that Parks' undertook that ultimately led to a bus boycott, which lasted nearly 13 months, as blacks mounted a successful Supreme Court challenge to the Jim Crow laws.
In an interview by Howell Raines for the book "My Soul is Rested: Movement Days in the Deep South Remembered" (1977), Parks' recalled the request from the bus driver to leave her seat:
"He got off the bus and came back shortly. A few minutes later, two policemen got on the bus, and they approached me and asked if the driver had asked me to stand up, and I said yes, and they wanted to know why I didn't. I told them I didn't think I should have to stand up... They placed me under arrest then and had me to get in the police car, and I was taken to jail."
Dr. Bobby Vaughn, director of the Office of Mission and Diversity, commented on the life of Parks, saying that "she was so inspirational in making people realize that fighting against racial oppression isn't something that just leaders do.
"Ordinary people have a strong role to play. She was an ordinary person who fought back."
The fight back eventually forced America to face its segregation laws and the climate that many citizens in the South were living under. Free but not yet equal, Park's actions on that bus, proved to be a focal point for blacks, as they pushed for equality in America.