Joining the chorus of sadness and conversation about the death of Rosa Parks.
If I contribute anything on this day, let it be to try to dispel the myth (however comforting it may be) that Ms. Parks' historic protest was a fluke, a result of her just being too "tired"--both in a literal sense (e.g., from working all day) and a more figurative one (e.g., from long suffering the slings and arrows of Jim Crow).
Let me note that Ms. Parks was a civil rights worker, and that this bus protest was a conscious strategy designed by bright, courageous, determined people. If my memory serves, there were previous attempts to focus attention on public transportation segregation by having Black folks refuse to move from the "White" sections. But prior to Ms. Parks they did not come to much for various reasons.
Why do I use this occassion to try to destroy a myth?
Because one of my pet peeves is retellings of African American civil rights movements that cast African Americans as background players, or as extraordinary deity-like figures, or as simple folk who inadvertantly bumble into history books. Which is why I hate (hate!) the movie "Mississippi Burning." Which is why I hate portrayals of King that set him up to be anything more than the fully human man that he was. Which is why I hate the stories about the old seamstress who was just sick and tired one day...
In reality all of the Black civil rights movements in this country have been powered by people just like us. People with no more than ordinary courage, but whose courage together multiplied into something truly extra-ordinary. People who had to plan, strategize, think--in addition to act.
Peace be with you, Mother Parks. Welcome home.
Posted by perry032 at October 25, 2005 10:10 AM