A lot of people have posted tributes to Rosa Parks today, and deservedly so. It took a lot of guts to say I ain’t movin’ in that time and place. You can only work within the system so long, especially when the system is rigged to consider you a lesser being, and there comes a time when playing nice and following the rules just doesn’t cut it anymore.
The bus boycott that followed Ms. Parks’s arrest and fine was another display of determination. When the bus was your primary means of getting from place to place, it was a real hardship to stay off. When the black people refused to play the inferiority game, it took courage to continue in the face of bricks, bombs, and bullets. It took something beyond mere courage — it took guts — to refuse the easy road of retaliation.
Some years later, Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed — shortly before he was to turn the civil rights movement to the needs of American poor, both black and white. I think it was no coincidence.
No comments
Post a Comment
Comments are welcome, and they don't have to be complimentary. I delete spam on sight, but that's pretty much it for moderation. Long off-topic rants or unconstructive flamage are also candidates for deletion but I haven’t seen any of that so far.
I have comment moderation on for posts over a week old, but that’s so I’ll see them.
Include your Twitter handle if you want a shout-out.