i just like to say that the world should be thankful that a giant such as her did what she done. we are as one in god eyes not man eyes but god. we are all gods children whether any one wants to listen. god wanted us to love one another and live in peace and harmony. but unfortunatley it didn't happen that way. what she did started a movement that will never be forgotten. i didn't grow up in the 60's but i heard how hard it was to be back in the day. with the whites only sign and the colored sign. how everything was divided whites in the front door while blacks in the back. if you ask me we are still this way now. it just not as open as it was back then. look at the justice system. it so divided that black people don't have a leg to stand on. martin luther king paved a way for people who grew up in the late 70's to enjoy what was fought for. Rev. jackson.medgar evers, ralph h. bunche and the list go on should be applauded for standing up what is right. we all go to church we are created equal but in that time they wasnt. thats why she Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat number one she had been working all day feet hurting. and a man told her to get up because he was suppose to sit there. if i was in her position i wouldn't either. if he wanted the seat he should have gotten there first. and second he wasnt no man because a man always suppose to be a gentlemen no matter what his color is. notice how the man doesn't have a name for what he tried to do. we don't glorify the man we rever the Lady who stood strong and fast like Job. and because of her faith she is rewarded with a lifetime of recognition. its amazing how Martin Luther spoke in his I have a dream speech that he fortold how we would unite as one. but what would have him rolling in his grave how once upon a time black people looked out for another and didn't try to kill one another. my stepdad is from the old school if he did something wrong in the community that your neighbor didn't like he got spank and then told to his mother and he got spanked again. now you get shot for reprimanding someone child who's not your own. tell me when did we not give a d@mn anymore. when we stop caring or believing one another. did all what was faught for equal rights before us was this done in vain. oh what a web this black america have weaved. the leaders are looking down on us probably shaking their heads on what us blacks have become. greed, hatred is all a dirty sin. we have to change for the good or god is going to destroy this world like he did in noah time. will you get on the boat if this tragedy fall upon us or would you be blind like the others perish forever. So i ask anyone who reads this Do you really appreciate the fine upstanding Pioneers as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King?

i just like to say that the world should be thankful that a giant such as her did what she done. we are as one in god eyes not man eyes but god. we are all gods children whether any one wants to listen. god wanted us to love one another and live in peace and harmony. but unfortunatley it didn't happen that way. what she did started a movement that will never be forgotten. i didn't grow up in the 60's but i heard how hard it was to be back in the day. with the whites only sign and the colored sign. how everything was divided whites in the front door while blacks in the back. if you ask me we are still this way now. it just not as open as it was back then. look at the justice system. it so divided that black people don't have a leg to stand on. martin luther king paved a way for people who grew up in the late 70's to enjoy what was fought for. Rev. jackson.medgar evers, ralph h. bunche and the list go on should be applauded for standing up what is right. we all go to church we are created equal but in that time they wasnt. thats why she Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat number one she had been working all day feet hurting. and a man told her to get up because he was suppose to sit there. if i was in her position i wouldn't either. if he wanted the seat he should have gotten there first. and second he wasnt no man because a man always suppose to be a gentlemen no matter what his color is. notice how the man doesn't have a name for what he tried to do. we don't glorify the man we rever the Lady who stood strong and fast like Job. and because of her faith she is rewarded with a lifetime of recognition. its amazing how Martin Luther spoke in his I have a dream speech that he fortold how we would unite as one. but what would have him rolling in his grave how once upon a time black people looked out for another and didn't try to kill one another. my stepdad is from the old school if he did something wrong in the community that your neighbor didn't like he got spank and then told to his mother and he got spanked again. now you get shot for reprimanding someone child who's not your own. tell me when did we not give a d@mn anymore. when we stop caring or believing one another. did all what was faught for equal rights before us was this done in vain. oh what a web this black america have weaved. the leaders are looking down on us probably shaking their heads on what us blacks have become. greed, hatred is all a dirty sin. we have to change for the good or god is going to destroy this world like he did in noah time. will you get on the boat if this tragedy fall upon us or would you be blind like the others perish forever. So i ask anyone who reads this Do you really appreciate the fine upstanding Pioneers as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King?


Not only Rosa and Martin, but Marcus, Malcom, Stokely, Kwame Nkrumah, Nelson Mandela, H. Rap Brown, Fred Hampton, Jim Brown, Bill Russell, Jackie Robinson, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Assata Shakur, Shirley Chisolm, Cynthia McKenney, Camille Cosby, Harriet Tubman the list goes on and on.

i thankyou truly for recognizing some fine pioneers we need to know so we can appreciate what we have today.

Um..i appreciate Martin luther king. Rosa Parkes to me seems like more of a figure head of the time. I dont cauctiously dismiss what she did.. because it was something she could have died for. But.. before then.. she was doing nothing. I was watching the tribute to Rosa on t.v and her cousin said that they werre raised to believe that she was just as good as anybody else.. if she really felt that way.. then i ask her.. why she aint sit her behind down before then.. and why she didnt have about 20 more black people sit down with her as well.. she didnt protest for our people until after.. her not giving up her seat was her protest.. she said herself "im tired" .. not we tired.. but im tired.. physically.. not mentally.. cause mentally i would have been tired a long time ago before she decided to stand up for herself.. and not her people. After she has become an icon.. why? because we made her one.. she has profited handsomely from her protest not to give up her seat.. i see her speaking..here and there. But i dont see where she has truly given back to the cummunity that has idolized her so. Thats just my opinion.

thanks poetic for replying and your right you are entitled to your opinion. i never thought of that in that situation. could you yourself endure what the blacks before us endure. the beatings, the hangings, spraying firehoses, putting dogs not just on children but men and women. we all if the chance was presented would have stood up for the cause but maybe someone close to her told her to stay neutral. maybe she was needed on that particular moment insteading of marching. don't forget about the church bombings in Ala and emerson till who was killed by men for whistling at a white woman. all the bloodshed had to stop one day. maybe something as peaceful as what she did was the right time and moment.

Rosa Parks worked for the NAACP. They had something going for them until after the civil rights movement and they sold out. I think she was a secretary. She said she was tired mentally as well as physically and that the whole process was just wrong. So she refused to give up her seat. During those times too. Many black woman cleaned the hotels and did house cleaning on a personal basis like the mexican immigrants are doing now. My mother worked at a large hotel for many years.

We got along more because we had a common enemy that we saw and had to deal with everyday. Couldn't sit in the front o fthe bus, not at the counter in Woolworths, and couldn't enter the front doors of hotels. Freight elevators we had to ride. They ones with music was off limits. Ask your Parents and Relatives while they are alive. Know your History!

They say no one wants to do those jobs... Like Richard Pryer said: America went and got themselves some new Negroes ( but he used the Ni??er word ).

Martin was 27 when he got involved. I admire this man and grew up admiring him. At ten I watched the civil rights marching and asked my father to frame a color picture I cut from the front page of a Time magazine. That picture I saw it hanging in my brothers house ( 39 years later ) today. I visited his house in Atlanta and the church he preached at and went to his center. That was a spritual experience for me. I dropped out of the tour and lingered in the rooms and in his backyard.. I felt his sprit in that house.

Have you read " Where do we go from here: Chaos or Community?

Beacon Press, Boston 1967 - ISBN 0-8070-0571-1

This book written by Martin shares some his thoughts on why the movement failed shortly after it started.

I truely honor sista parks as well many others who made a stand
for many reasons and it's another reason why we as people shouldn't
let it die or be turned away nor should we continue to divide ourselves
but stand as these great people did .....we too are living Icons we have
the tools to be as great .....Thankz for sharing this

i appreciate you bro. hodee and rich for your input. i really appreciate how you shed light on how it used to be back in the day. see like i said i was born in the late seventies and i thank god i wasn't raised in that civil right movement era. because think about some of your families worked for the white race and if they heard you was apart of that movement you probably was tortured or fired. so think about it is the cause more important or your family. must your family suffer because of injustice. the real importance is you recognizing the cause and try to support all you can. but if your life and job is on the line i would be neutral until the moment comes. i'm a single mother i'll fight for equal rights all day long but when it comes to feeding my family family first. you walk the line see how many is coming to help you if you don't have anything to eat, or clothes on your back, or help you to get your lights back on. Nada because they will talk from a distance shaking their head on how you would risk losing your job because of the cause. believe this have happen and then they found out all of it was about hype. its like whats stated some of us talk the talk but can we walk the walk you be the judge.

Um..i appreciate Martin luther king. Rosa Parkes to me seems like more of a figure head of the time. I dont cauctiously dismiss what she did.. because it was something she could have died for. But.. before then.. she was doing nothing. I was watching the tribute to Rosa on t.v and her cousin said that they werre raised to believe that she was just as good as anybody else.. if she really felt that way.. then i ask her.. why she aint sit her behind down before then.. and why she didnt have about 20 more black people sit down with her as well.. she didnt protest for our people until after.. her not giving up her seat was her protest.. she said herself "im tired" .. not we tired.. but im tired.. physically.. not mentally.. cause mentally i would have been tired a long time ago before she decided to stand up for herself.. and not her people. After she has become an icon.. why? because we made her one.. she has profited handsomely from her protest not to give up her seat.. i see her speaking..here and there. But i dont see where she has truly given back to the cummunity that has idolized her so. Thats just my opinion.


Sister Poetic, actually Rosa Parks had been arrested as early as 1942 for violating the Jim Crow seating arrangements on mass transportation in Montgomery... She did it as a member of the NAACP, which she had been a member of since the 1930's, when Dr. King was just a small child... She later was arrested in 1947, for doing the very same thing, when Doc was about 18 years old, and sophomore at Morehouse...

Remember, Mrs. Rosa made her transition two days ago at age 92, and had been studying non-violence techniques at the Highlander Institute founded by White Appalachian activist, Miles Horton, again, while Doc was but a mere highschool student... Mrs. Rosa, Septima Clark, Mrs. Ella Jo Baker, Joanne Robinson, and a host of African Women paid some serious prices, including the breakup of their marriages in the case of Mr.s Rosa, so Doc could be put, literally, on this high pedastal... It is dead wrong...

Doc came to his prominence because E.D. Nixon sought him out, instead of the milquetoast old ministers who'd been cooperating with White Supremacy for forever... He sought him out because he knew Doc was from outta town, and a young intelligent guy whom he could actually manipulate in ways the older ones could not be... We must read our history more closely... Too many of our greatest fighters for freedom remain anonymous, because America likes messiahs... Messiahs aint messiahs without brilliant and corageous followers... Doc had a great many of those to be sure...

Lastly, brother/sister NEVAR, even Rosa's story is a bit embellished... As I pointed out to you, She'd done the sit-down, get arrested things on several occassions, previously, and gotten no fanfare... This time, it was publicized to a people who were still angry over the Emmett Till Murder just two months earlier... Historians are,now, beginning to see THAT incident as the number one motivating factor for the modern civil rights movement, because it got so many YOUNG PEOPLE angry... When many of the SNCC, Black Panther, Black Muslims, and other fighters of that era are questioned and interviewed about what made them get involved in the movement, a large, large percentile of these, now older veterans of the movement, say it was the murder of Emmett Louis Till, that put a fire underneath them that would not be put out... Add to that the returning veterans of WWII and Korea, who were treated no differently when they returned as before they'd left... You have the nucleus of a movement for change, and not a messiah in sight...

Truth is, Poetic or anyone else, what was DOC DOING prior to 1955-56????


Peace!
Isaiah

To add to that, the Montgomery Buss Boycott was not even the first successful boycott of Jim Crow transportation by southern African Americans... It was the 1953 BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA BUS BOYCOTT led by the Reverend T.J. JEMISON that emerged victorious first... I posted a very large and informative article about it in the Honoring The Ancestors forum... Check it out, and remember the name T.J. JEMISON, for future reference...

Peace!
Isaiah

thanks isaiah for the heads up on this i'm true to this and new to this. i'm willing to learn the facts and not half truths. we need to know where it all started from so when we give our input we wont be misleading noone. any one that wants to shed light on the situation please feel free to comment. i'm willing to listen and learn.

Thank you for shedding light on some of my blindness.. I was not aware of the others. However.. that adds to my theory that we created her, and made her.. not the others a big figure head. When surely there were more people out there who have been overshadowed by the "plight" of rosa parkes. My grandma anf 5 others had a sit in, in a white bathroom, in the courthouse. ANd for three days other blacks did the same... and the guard was called in totown to control them. Now all these events were successful.. but are lesser known facts of the time... the cause.. Emmitt Till murder. the effect.. blk folks going wild. The press was crazy with blk folk acting out after the E.T death.. why was this one boycott claiming to be the soul.. start of the civil rights movement.. Shouldnt the straw that brok the camels back be the start?
This was not an intentional act..in her own words.."I did not get on the bus to get arrested," she has said. "I got on the bus to go home." Simply put.. she wasnt fiesty (http://www.time.com/time/time100/heroes/profile/parks01.html).. or wanted to finally make a point.

Parks was not the first to be detained for this offense. Eight months earlier, Claudette Colvin, 15, refused to give up her seat and was arrested. Black activists met with this girl to determine if she would make a good test case — as secretary of the local N.A.A.C.P., Parks attended the meeting — but it was decided that a more "upstanding" candidate was necessary to withstand the scrutiny of the courts and the press. And then in October, a young woman named Mary Louise Smith was arrested; N.A.A.C.P. leaders rejected her too as their vehicle, looking for someone more able to withstand media scrutiny. Smith paid the fine and was released.

Six weeks later, the time was ripe. The facts, rubbed shiny for retelling, are these: On Dec. 1, 1955, Mrs. Rosa Parks, seamstress for the Montgomery Fair department store, boarded the Cleveland Avenue bus. She took a seat in the fifth row — the first row of the "Colored Section." The driver was the same one who had put her off a bus 12 years earlier for refusing to get off and reboard through the back door. ("He was still mean-looking," she has said.) Did that make her stubborn? Or had her work in the N.A.A.C.P. sharpened her sensibilities so that she knew what to do — or more precisely, what not to do: Don't frown, don't struggle, don't shout, don't pay the fine? http://www.time.com/time/time100/heroes/profile/parks02.html

She was chosent to be the example.. it was not her will to start such a drastic change... others before her had been subject to this discusting behaviour.. I still think we have overlooked some of the more active contributors to the struggle.. she was 42 years old when she decided to act.. the girl was 15.. surely if a 15 y/o can realize the injustice and act.. upon it.. there were many before who suffered beyond her.. and was many after.. where are their faces.. and bio's.. and awards?

But once again yes, i do appreciate.. but i dont feel that she should have been idolized and figureheaded as such .when she was clearly a puppet.. from the point that she got arrested. It wasnt cause she was protestend for us... just for her own good. After everything went down.. sure she joined this that n the other.



To add to that, the Montgomery Buss Boycott was not even the first successful boycott of Jim Crow transportation by southern African Americans... It was the 1953 BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA BUS BOYCOTT led by the Reverend T.J. JEMISON that emerged victorious first... I posted a very large and informative article about it in the Honoring The Ancestors forum... Check it out, and remember the name T.J. JEMISON, for future reference...

Peace!
Isaiah

i just like to say that the world should be thankful that a giant such as her did what she done. we are as one in god eyes not man eyes but god. we are all gods children whether any one wants to listen. god wanted us to love one another and live in peace and harmony. but unfortunatley it didn't happen that way. what she did started a movement that will never be forgotten. i didn't grow up in the 60's but i heard how hard it was to be back in the day. with the whites only sign and the colored sign. how everything was divided whites in the front door while blacks in the back. if you ask me we are still this way now. it just not as open as it was back then. look at the justice system. it so divided that black people don't have a leg to stand on. martin luther king paved a way for people who grew up in the late 70's to enjoy what was fought for. Rev. jackson.medgar evers, ralph h. bunche and the list go on should be applauded for standing up what is right. we all go to church we are created equal but in that time they wasnt. thats why she Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat number one she had been working all day feet hurting. and a man told her to get up because he was suppose to sit there. if i was in her position i wouldn't either. if he wanted the seat he should have gotten there first. and second he wasnt no man because a man always suppose to be a gentlemen no matter what his color is. notice how the man doesn't have a name for what he tried to do. we don't glorify the man we rever the Lady who stood strong and fast like Job. and because of her faith she is rewarded with a lifetime of recognition. its amazing how Martin Luther spoke in his I have a dream speech that he fortold how we would unite as one. but what would have him rolling in his grave how once upon a time black people looked out for another and didn't try to kill one another. my stepdad is from the old school if he did something wrong in the community that your neighbor didn't like he got spank and then told to his mother and he got spanked again. now you get shot for reprimanding someone child who's not your own. tell me when did we not give a d@mn anymore. when we stop caring or believing one another. did all what was faught for equal rights before us was this done in vain. oh what a web this black america have weaved. the leaders are looking down on us probably shaking their heads on what us blacks have become. greed, hatred is all a dirty sin. we have to change for the good or god is going to destroy this world like he did in noah time. will you get on the boat if this tragedy fall upon us or would you be blind like the others perish forever. So i ask anyone who reads this Do you really appreciate the fine upstanding Pioneers as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King?

The illiteracy rate in our community is high and climbing. Racism still exists and many of the current generations seem to resent that they actually have to step up and do their part. Especially amongst the young educated. The oow birth rate adds to the cycle of poverty and there is a steadfast refusal to acknowledge how it hurts us. We call each other by that slave term more than the klan. We kill each other more than the klan. Instead of celebrating education, it is now looked on 'trying to be white'. We dont pool our resources to leverage businesses financially. We generate over $700 billion every year. We dont own any fortune 500/100 companies. We have allowed white folx to take our music. ( Oh you thought N'Synch invente that style? ) Hip Hop/Gangsta rap disrespects our women and leads our youth to emulate wrong. Etc etc etc etc ......

Um..i appreciate Martin luther king. Rosa Parkes to me seems like more of a figure head of the time. I dont cauctiously dismiss what she did.. because it was something she could have died for. But.. before then.. she was doing nothing. I was watching the tribute to Rosa on t.v and her cousin said that they werre raised to believe that she was just as good as anybody else.. if she really felt that way.. then i ask her.. why she aint sit her behind down before then.. and why she didnt have about 20 more black people sit down with her as well.. she didnt protest for our people until after.. her not giving up her seat was her protest.. she said herself "im tired" .. not we tired.. but im tired.. physically.. not mentally.. cause mentally i would have been tired a long time ago before she decided to stand up for herself.. and not her people. After she has become an icon.. why? because we made her one.. she has profited handsomely from her protest not to give up her seat.. i see her speaking..here and there. But i dont see where she has truly given back to the cummunity that has idolized her so. Thats just my opinion.

1. It is obvious that you have a lack of understanding of just how bad it was in the south back then.
2. Obviously you dont understand that she was unable to get a job after she did what she did. And neither could her husband.
3. You obviously dont realize that others that had done this were taken out and "disappeared" for doing what she did. Especially going to trial to fight that entrenched system.
4. You obviously dont realize that she was always an activist, which was pointed out in an earlier post. Morever, she had several run ins with this bus driver, who had a reputation for leaving black riders even after they had paid. A little history: Back then, you paid at the front, got off the bus and entered the back to sit down if you were black. The particular driver thought it was funny to drive off after you had paid and left the bus to get back on in "your" seat.
5. You may need to view 'Eye on the Prize; pt I and II', 'The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow', just to name a few. This may enlighten you as to not only why she became an icon, but why she remained so.

Far be it of those who werent there and had no clue as to exactly what it took to do what she did. To criticize as to what it took and why constant praise is given. It is akin to asking why is Jesus so revered? He just got crucified like millions of others back then. I'm sure some future generation in South Africa, will ask why Mandela is so venerated. Btw, Mandela said Ms Parks inspired him to resist when he did. As well as other activist throughout the world. Tienamin square, etc etc etc.

I will put it like this (although it might be an understatement).......................

If it was not for a movement that led to desegregating the buses, MANY, MANY, MANY people would be without jobs and on the street. I have no doubt in my mind that taxi cabs, subway stations, and even cars have not gotten cheaper. I recognize not just Rosa Parks, but Ella Baker and all those who were persecuted.

Also, I seen a documentary where a white preacher admitted that after reading the Letter From the Birmingham City Jail by Dr. King, he integrated his church, and strives for more integration even today. It was Dr. Martin Luther King who got many southern religious white folk to at least accept and respect blacks, except for of course the KKK, White Citizen's Council, and their followers.

Over all, I admire both of them to the fullest and appreciate their efforts. I sometimes say that I am ready to be persecuted for standing up for what I believed in, but I still can't imagine someone throwing a brick at my face, and fracturing a couple bones while walking down the street (like what Dr. King went through in Memphis.)

No matter how we feel about them, we must at least aknowledge the fact that they were not afraid to take a stand.

CD

Ohh Contrar,
I dorealize what it was like back then.. i do kno the same driver that told her to get up put her off the buss 10 years earlier for refusing to go to the back to et on the bus. I do realize.. what im saying is that.... white ppl withh keep all the power if you let them. As with now.. we know there are things that still arent right...
but what are you.. or your neighbor doing to fix em? in most cases nonthin..
education without action is liek a gun without bullets. thats my point.
I have not neglected her contribution to our people aftetr the fact.. nor how inportant was it that she teamed up with the NAACP, but... shoot.. Im the treasurer of my NAACP college chapter.. will i become a figure head if i become a puppet of this orginization.. shedding light on racisim? No.. because many have done it before me.. and many died before me. and tehre will be many after me,.. who continue to fight the fight b4 and after.
My point is that Rosa Parks became a media frenzy... because we made her one.. shes a blk Mother Teresa. Because we choose to see her that way.



1. It is obvious that you have a lack of understanding of just how bad it was in the south back then.
2. Obviously you dont understand that she was unable to get a job after she did what she did. And neither could her husband.
3. You obviously dont realize that others that had done this were taken out and "disappeared" for doing what she did. Especially going to trial to fight that entrenched system.
4. You obviously dont realize that she was always an activist, which was pointed out in an earlier post. Morever, she had several run ins with this bus driver, who had a reputation for leaving black riders even after they had paid. A little history: Back then, you paid at the front, got off the bus and entered the back to sit down if you were black. The particular driver thought it was funny to drive off after you had paid and left the bus to get back on in "your" seat.
5. You may need to view 'Eye on the Prize; pt I and II', 'The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow', just to name a few. This may enlighten you as to not only why she became an icon, but why she remained so.

Far be it of those who werent there and had no clue as to exactly what it took to do what she did. To criticize as to what it took and why constant praise is given. It is akin to asking why is Jesus so revered? He just got crucified like millions of others back then. I'm sure some future generation in South Africa, will ask why Mandela is so venerated. Btw, Mandela said Ms Parks inspired him to resist when he did. As well as other activist throughout the world. Tienamin square, etc etc etc.

to cedric and poetic and kem i appreciate the feedback that was given. what happen during the civil rights movement is no different then the Katrina disaster. you saw how our president reacted to the disaster. he let the poor perish and the strong survive. we found out micheal brown wasnt qualified in no way. what is this country gone to where we think we have a commander in chief and all we have is someone playing cowboy. i'll just learn how to run the country along the way. this is why were experience so much hell. all those blacks wallowing in their filth, dead bodies around it took the mayor of new orleans to say someone get their *** down here now stop talking and come . i don't blame him his people dying and they are enjoying a bath, meal and tv. and now look america theres no more funds available. but now we must send all the help to other countries. its funny to hear a white person say bush got everyone in the poor house. all i'm saying if it wasn't for the fight for equal rights there wouldn't be no condalezza rice there or no colin powell. but notice he parted his ways why not because oh im tired. because maybe mr. bush values are all screwed and didnt want to go down in history for that. what about how men are paid more than a woman. how some companies dont believe in affirmative actions. hell you still have some folks think we need to get back on the boat to africa. i'm probably gonna be criticize for my comment. but i'm glad the ancestors before us was sold. i hate that the ancestors was put into slavery. but don't blame the white man blame the chief. we need to be thankful that we don't have to go through what africa is going through. with aids on the rise and poverty. we have this on our land but at least we can get healthcare and they cant. i'm sorry for getting off the subject but this what i feel. my stepdad talk about being amongst the civil right movement. white man calling them a n**gger to his face couldn't do nothing about it. but one day he said a friend fought back and got beat for it. all that faught for the cause should be thanked and acknowlede because if a black person experience the kkk, police brutality. anything they have the justice system to deal with. you don't see kkk out in the open they do they have the public to deal with. you saw how they put that old man in jail for bombing the church. lets stand for the people who was hung, lets stand for the people who was shot, robbed, beaten, raped, fired. because like Martin Luther king said and one day white children black children will be hand in hand and you see alot of that going on today. but the most famous words he said Free at Last, Free at last thank god almighty were free at last.

we have to one day replace ignorance with love. i believe we'll go further in life when we can be the model christians. i'm not saying i'm perfect but i do know one thing to appreciate whats before you. never take anything for granted never look down upon others but figure out how you can make it better.

we have to one day replace ignorance with love. i believe we'll go further in life when we can be the model christians. i'm not saying i'm perfect but i do know one thing to appreciate whats before you. never take anything for granted never look down upon others but figure out how you can make it better.


...............And that is why we must be the change that wwe want to see in the world. It begins and ends with us. If we do nothing, who will do something? Do we need another generation of admiring ancestors, being kicked around by police, afraid of racists, afraid of standing against injustice, etc.?

CD

Ohh Contrar,
I dorealize what it was like back then.. i do kno the same driver that told her to get up put her off the buss 10 years earlier for refusing to go to the back to et on the bus. I do realize.. what im saying is that.... white ppl withh keep all the power if you let them. As with now.. we know there are things that still arent right...
but what are you.. or your neighbor doing to fix em? in most cases nonthin..
education without action is liek a gun without bullets. thats my point.
I have not neglected her contribution to our people aftetr the fact.. nor how inportant was it that she teamed up with the NAACP, but... shoot.. Im the treasurer of my NAACP college chapter.. will i become a figure head if i become a puppet of this orginization.. shedding light on racisim? No.. because many have done it before me.. and many died before me. and tehre will be many after me,.. who continue to fight the fight b4 and after.
My point is that Rosa Parks became a media frenzy... because we made her one.. shes a blk Mother Teresa. Because we choose to see her that way.

She became an icon because it is well documented that she inspired others throughout the world to protest their own conditions. The media frenzy resulted because famous people all over the world said it was because of her. She deserves all this praise.

to cedric and poetic and kem i appreciate the feedback that was given. what happen during the civil rights movement is no different then the Katrina disaster. you saw how our president reacted to the disaster. he let the poor perish and the strong survive. we found out micheal brown wasnt qualified in no way. what is this country gone to where we think we have a commander in chief and all we have is someone playing cowboy. i'll just learn how to run the country along the way. this is why were experience so much hell. all those blacks wallowing in their filth, dead bodies around it took the mayor of new orleans to say someone get their *** down here now stop talking and come . i don't blame him his people dying and they are enjoying a bath, meal and tv. and now look america theres no more funds available. but now we must send all the help to other countries. its funny to hear a white person say bush got everyone in the poor house. all i'm saying if it wasn't for the fight for equal rights there wouldn't be no condalezza rice there or no colin powell. but notice he parted his ways why not because oh im tired. because maybe mr. bush values are all screwed and didnt want to go down in history for that. what about how men are paid more than a woman. how some companies dont believe in affirmative actions. hell you still have some folks think we need to get back on the boat to africa. i'm probably gonna be criticize for my comment. but i'm glad the ancestors before us was sold. i hate that the ancestors was put into slavery. but don't blame the white man blame the chief. we need to be thankful that we don't have to go through what africa is going through. with aids on the rise and poverty. we have this on our land but at least we can get healthcare and they cant. i'm sorry for getting off the subject but this what i feel. my stepdad talk about being amongst the civil right movement. white man calling them a n**gger to his face couldn't do nothing about it. but one day he said a friend fought back and got beat for it. all that faught for the cause should be thanked and acknowlede because if a black person experience the kkk, police brutality. anything they have the justice system to deal with. you don't see kkk out in the open they do they have the public to deal with. you saw how they put that old man in jail for bombing the church. lets stand for the people who was hung, lets stand for the people who was shot, robbed, beaten, raped, fired. because like Martin Luther king said and one day white children black children will be hand in hand and you see alot of that going on today. but the most famous words he said Free at Last, Free at last thank god almighty were free at last.

We have never made it as dangerous for them as they make it for us

to cedric and kem i hope it won't get to that point if it does you know what revelation says. we are already in the last days as it is the world itself is speeding up jesus homecoming. frankly i don't want to experience what he said. i want to be one the side of salvation. we have to get it together or else it will be too late.

Tony Leather

Is it really justice that a 15 year-old girl who made history should be written out of it because she was pregnant? Being black didn't help - not in Alabama in 1955 - but this girl was as important to the growing civil rights movement, in her way, as more famous people were to become, but prejudice within her own community stifled that importance.

Everyone who knows anything about the civil rights movement knows the story of December 1st, 1955, when Rosa Parks, a 49 year old black seamstress got on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama and took a seat. Three stops on, some white passengers boarded and driver James Blake ordered Rosa to surrender her seat to one of them. She refused.

This was unknown and unacceptable behaviour for a black person, and Blake went to find a policeman. Rosa was arrested, and outrage among the black community was such that her treatment sparked off the infamous bus boycott. A chain reaction followed across the southern states, making American apartheid an international issue within a very short space of time.

Rosa's iron determination and courage was the trigger for a rapidly growing stance of defiance among black people, ultimately catapulting a previously unknown 26-year-old preacher called Martin Luther King on to the world stage. King said of Rosa that "She was a victim of both the forces of history and of destiny, tracked down by the zeitgeist - The spirit of the times."

Before long, they were referring to her as "Saint Rosa" - "An angel walking" and as a "heaven sent messenger." Her lawyer - Fred Gray - spoke of her in glowing biblical terms, but somewhere en route to her legendary status, the truth got buried. Rosa was no innocent victim or wallflower, but a feminist and political activist of long standing, and she certainly wasn't the first to make a stand.

The real heroine had taken her stand a full nine months earlier. Claudette Colvin had been thrown off a bus in the same town, in an almost identical situation, and like Parks pleaded not guilty to breaking the law. The local black community had also rallied round her, at the time, but she never did get into the civil rights hall of fame.

Just as her case was starting to attract national interest, she became pregnant. Black community leadership in her town was mainly middle-class, church-going and male, so Colvin was suddenly seen as a fallen woman - not someone whose cause they could take up with any degree of comfort, so the support she'd known dried up.

Colvin was a clever, confident young woman - deeply religious, but nonetheless rebellious. Her disadvantage within the black community was that she was very dark skinned, and the prejudice among blacks themselves meant this fact put her at the bottom of their social scale. Darker skinned girls tended to be shy and retiring - knowing their place - but not Colvin.

Even at ten years old, she wanted to be President of the USA, and her desire to "go north and liberate her people" was seen as a sign of her being crazy by her teachers. She was especially inflamed about the case of a schoolmate - Jeremiah Reeves - a teenage delivery boy found having sex with a white woman. Though he claimed it was by consent, the woman cried rape.

This was a violation of a deeply felt southern taboo on sex between races, and when Claudette was in the ninth grade, the police took Jeremiah away and put him on death row, where he was executed four years later. So it was that this angry, articulate young girl got on the Highland Avenue bus on March 2nd 1955, opposite Martin Luther King's church on Dexter Avenue, Montgomery.

The law said that whites should sit in front and blacks at the back, and blacks were obliged to give up seats to white passengers who were standing, but Colvin refused to do this, as she was occupying the very last seat normally reserved for blacks. After heated exchanges, she was taken to city hall and charged with misconduct, resisting arrest and violating city segregation laws. She was terrified, though convinced she hadn't broken the law - not knowing what might happen to her - as the impact of what she'd done began to dawn on her.

News traveled fast, even in those days, and meetings began to be called among black communities all over town. Local black activist Ed Nixon wanted to make hers a test case, and meetings with the commissioner resulted in a promise that harassment would stop. Despite pleading innocent at her trial, Colvin was found guilty and put on probation.

All the same, her heroic defiance had sent shock waves through American society, and letters of support arrived from places as far apart as Oregon and California. Still, the elders of her own black community had their doubts about her worthiness to represent them. After all, she was working-class and very black. When she also fell pregnant, that did it for them, and they decided to wait for someone who should look better in the public eye.

Rosa Parks was married and "morally clean" as well as being lighter-skinned, so hers became the case that everyone remembers, but this hardly seems fair or just to Claudette Colvin. After all, her March stand was important because it came less than a year after the US supreme court had outlawed the "separate but equal" policy on which racial segregation was legally based, but she was also the first person ever to plead NOT GUILTY to a violation of the bus seating ordnance.

Even today, Colvin is still resentful, sad and bewildered at the way she was treated, and she surely has a valid point. As a ten year old, she had a dream of freedom for her kind, and there is little doubt that her actions really did sew the seeds of future change in the laws on civil rights in America. Whatever the history books have tried to say, she truly was the first to stand up and be counted when it mattered. Isn't it time she had some proper recognition? I believe it is.

Copyright © 2001 Tony Leather

About the Author

Tony Leather is a UK writer, published fairly widely around the world, both in print and online. Only writing seriously for about three years now, he hopes to establish a name and reputation as a writer, and even one day earn a living from it. He appreciates comment from readers about his work, and can be contacted at tony@stables.worldonline.co.uk Your comments help him to improve his writing, he says, so don't be shy!




Reader's Comments



If you would like to comment on this article, you can enter your comments in the form below. Your comments will be added to this page.




Your Name:



E-Mail:
(Optional)



I remember hearing about this woman before. Something that should be noted. FYI

thanks for the input diane.

to cedric and kem i hope it won't get to that point if it does you know what revelation says. we are already in the last days as it is the world itself is speeding up jesus homecoming. frankly i don't want to experience what he said. i want to be one the side of salvation. we have to get it together or else it will be too late.

I dont recall anything in the scripture that stops us from defending ourselves. Or doing a preemptive strike.

to kem what i'm speaking on how this world have gotten like soddom and gomorrah. god saw what was wrong and brought fire to the city. maybe he just testing us through whatever way to see if we have faith. i'm misunderstanding you defend yourself from what. read it how he spoke about mothers against daughter, fathers against son. how there will be rumors and rumors of wars going on. and that babylon the great will fall and the beast will eat upon her fleshy parts. meaning that the world will turn and devour. think about what going on the devil is working overtime. thats why jesus said woe to earth because the devil is roaming around like a lion seeking to devour someone. and my brother that is true. don't you or have you heard of a situation in mississippi where brother sister fought over a bag of ice when katrina hit and shot her in the head. tragedy see he don't care he trying to smite god with showing him that he can use something that meaningful and make it look wrong. please elaborate on what you was speaking on my brother.

but in 55 years the Civil Rights Movement has depreciated!

There was no plan. There was just a lot of marching and boycotting. For What?

Dr. John Henrik Clarke addressed this issue in the movie "A Great And Mighty Walk" He personally advised Martin that "nonviolence" should be treated as a strategy not as a way of life. Ghandi remained a terrorist-in-the-rafters though he promoted nonviolence. Regrettably, he says--the operative action of the day should have been bury the man continue the plan -- but there was no plan in the first place because the movers and shakers of the Civil Rights Movement forgot {during a time when all eyes were on America} to devise a multi-tasked organization that would address the real issues facing its people:

1. How they would be clothed
2. How they would be fed
3. How they would be educationed
4. How they would be sheltered

Fine :run:

thanks for the input your also right it defnitely depreciated.

to kem what i'm speaking on how this world have gotten like soddom and gomorrah. god saw what was wrong and brought fire to the city. maybe he just testing us through whatever way to see if we have faith. i'm misunderstanding you defend yourself from what. read it how he spoke about mothers against daughter, fathers against son. how there will be rumors and rumors of wars going on. and that babylon the great will fall and the beast will eat upon her fleshy parts. meaning that the world will turn and devour. think about what going on the devil is working overtime. thats why jesus said woe to earth because the devil is roaming around like a lion seeking to devour someone. and my brother that is true. don't you or have you heard of a situation in mississippi where brother sister fought over a bag of ice when katrina hit and shot her in the head. tragedy see he don't care he trying to smite god with showing him that he can use something that meaningful and make it look wrong. please elaborate on what you was speaking on my brother.

I dont see GOD testing us by allowing rapes and lynchings. I think we need to make it as dangerous for them as they do us

i know our god isnt testing us by letting us get raped or lynched. the point i'm trying to make is god can do whatever test he wants to run on us to see if we will remain faithful to him. sometimes we bring afflictions on ourselves and think that god is punishing us. we have to many examples of ways god tested his most faithful servants. remember moses he perform all wonderful miracles in his name. and that one time when the people wanted water he said do you want i to strike water from this rock. now kem can man extract water from a rock no. and therefore moses couldn't lead his people into the promise land because he didn't acknowledge the true source of the nature. all i'm saying is that we need to be aware of whats going on for the day that jesus will arise lets not that one thing keep us from acheiving true salvation. i know it is a sin to idolize anyone because my father is a jealous one. and he dont want us gloryfing anyone. but i must say this what ever time we are to face those lions like Rosa Park did. I hope we have the strength and faith to stand up for what is right.