Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Human Dignity Indeed
She Set Wheels of Justice in Motion - Los Angeles Times: "Rosa Parks, the Alabama seamstress whose simple act of defiance on a segregated Montgomery bus in 1955 stirred the nonviolent protests of the modern civil rights movement and catapulted an unknown minister named Martin Luther King Jr. to international prominence, died Monday of natural causes at her home in Detroit. She was 92.
Often called the mother of the movement that led to the dismantling of institutionalized segregation in the South, Parks became a symbol of human dignity when she was jailed for refusing to relinquish her bus seat to a white man when she rode home from work on the evening of Dec. 1, 1955.
Her arrest for violating Alabama's bus segregation laws galvanized Montgomery's blacks, who boycotted the city's buses for 381 days until the U.S. Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional."
Whites, Blacks and Americans of all backgrounds owe Ms. Parks a debt, as she clearly was a catalyst for the evolution of American thought. Parks' death is a reminder of how unjust our system was to others with blood of red and dreams like any others. Her constitution that day gave others like her a strength they had not yet known and began a period of growth for the American mind and spirit. In fact, her strength may have been a catalyst for the strength of the late, great Martin Luther King, Jr. I can't imagine a world without Rosa Parks or "I Have a Dream", and quite frankly, I don't want to. In the context of the evolution of man, we all stand a bit more upright because of her and King's time on Earth. We should all be grateful.
Often called the mother of the movement that led to the dismantling of institutionalized segregation in the South, Parks became a symbol of human dignity when she was jailed for refusing to relinquish her bus seat to a white man when she rode home from work on the evening of Dec. 1, 1955.
Her arrest for violating Alabama's bus segregation laws galvanized Montgomery's blacks, who boycotted the city's buses for 381 days until the U.S. Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional."
Whites, Blacks and Americans of all backgrounds owe Ms. Parks a debt, as she clearly was a catalyst for the evolution of American thought. Parks' death is a reminder of how unjust our system was to others with blood of red and dreams like any others. Her constitution that day gave others like her a strength they had not yet known and began a period of growth for the American mind and spirit. In fact, her strength may have been a catalyst for the strength of the late, great Martin Luther King, Jr. I can't imagine a world without Rosa Parks or "I Have a Dream", and quite frankly, I don't want to. In the context of the evolution of man, we all stand a bit more upright because of her and King's time on Earth. We should all be grateful.
