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"Many people knew ABOUT Rosa Parks...
I KNEW her!!" (Rhea McCauley)
Who was Rosa Parks and why should we study about her?
"Most historians date the beginning of the modern civil rights movement in the United States to December 1, 1955. That was the day when an unknown seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger. This brave woman, Rosa Parks, was arrested and fined for violating a city ordinance, but her lonely act of defiance began a movement that ended legal segregation in America and made her an inspiration to freedom-loving people everywhere." Click here to see and Hear her tell the story in her own words.
Enter Rosa Parks... The Black Man of the early fifties was a man deluded by what historian Lerone Bennett Jr., described in Confrontation: Black and White, as an "optative mood [which] bridges past and future, giving men time to count their winnings, leading them on to absurd exaggerations of their gains, preparing them unwittingly for the next period of excruciating disappointment."
That mood was broken on December 1, 1955, when a mild-mannered Montgomery, Alabama, seamstress, Mrs. Rosa Parks, made the momentous decision not to give up her seat to a white man. She was tired from a long day's work and she was tired of the debilitating effects of Jim Crow. It was a time in the South when separate facilities for black and white were a reality, and if whites were not satisfied with their facilities, the black man was required to move or give way.
Naturally Mrs. Parks was arrested, but her decision helped to change the course of black history.
Following her arrest, Mrs. Parks is fingerprinted by
Montgomery Deputy Sheriff D.H. Lackey.
What brought these two together? After the arrest, a group of black women asked the ministers and civic leaders to call a boycott on December 5, the day of Mrs. Parks trial. One of the ministers who responded to that call was a twenty-six year-old doctor of philosopjy, Martin Luther King. Jr. an Atlanta native and pastor of Montgomery's Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.
King later talked of that day in his book, Stride Toward Freedom.
I jumped in my car and for almost an hour I cruised down every major street and examined every passing bus. During this hour, at the peak of morning traffic, I saw no more than eight Negro passengers riding the buses. By this time I was jubilant. Instead of the 60 percent cooperation we had hoped for, it was becoming apparent that we had reached almost 100 percent. A miracle had taken place. The once dormant and quiescent Negro community was now fully awake. I jumped in my car and for almost an hour I cruised down every major street and examined ever passing bus. During this hour, at the peak of morning traffic, I saw no more than eitht Negro passengers riding the buses. By this time I was jubilant. Instead of the 60 percent cooperation we had hoped for, it was becoming apparent that we had reached almost 100 percent. A miracle had taken place. The once dormant and quiescent Negro community was now fully awake.