Reply #71: Rosa Parks was a long-time political activist [View All]

[klook]

True, she was a brave individual. But she was also an active participant, with many others, in the Civil Rights struggle. In 1932, she and her husband, Raymond Parks, joined the campaign to save the "Scottsboro Boys," nine young black men convicted--on highly questionable grounds--of the rape of two white teenagers near Scottsboro, Alabama. (The defendants all eventually won their freedom, but it took nearly 20 years to overturn their convictions.)

Rosa Parks was a member of the NAACP at a time when that in itself was a dangerous act in the middle of Klu Klux Klan territory. She was Secretary of the Montgomery branch of the NAACP from 1943-1957, and organized the local Youth Council of the NAACP. She was in the process of organizing a youth conference for the NAACP at the time of her arrest on Dec. 1, 1955.

So the popular image of an ordinary working woman who just suddenly decided not to give up her seat on the bus is completely false.

By the way, she didn't sit down in the White section, either, as the story is often told. She was sitting in the "Colored" section of the bus and refused to give up her seat to a white man when the White section was full. (Three other black passengers relented when the bus driver told them to get up, but Rosa Parks refused.)

I'm looking forward to putting Montgomery Bus Boycott postage stamps on a lot of letters when the "To Form a More Perfect Union" series is issued by the Post Office:


I hope now there will be a national memorial to her, a postage stamp of her own, and maybe even a national holiday on December 1.