I wonder if her mouth was dry as she stood there waiting for the bus....

[liberalitch]

....on Dec. 1, 1955. She knew what she was about to do. A few months earlier a young unwed pregnant black teenager (last name Cobert) tried to force the issue. However, due to her "condition" the churches refused to back her up. Their "candidate" had to be beyond reproach..... that was 42 year old Rosa Parks.

You know that her heart must have been POUNDING when the driver said "why don't you make it light on yourself and give this man the seat?" She had seen people beaten and lynched in her life.
Still, in her thin voice she said: "no sir, I'm right tired today,.... I think I'll be sitting right here."

What fearlessness, what power, and we are all better for it!

[TechBear_Seattle]

1. Courage appears when you least expect it

But did Rosa Parks deliberately set out to challenge the law? I seem to remember an interview with her a few years ago, where she said that she was not out to make a test case; she really was tired.

[Geoff R. Casavant]

3. Of course she did

I expect a person who had seen lynchings and beatings of "uppity negroes," who only wanted to rest her feet, would have meekly moved to the back of the bus. No she screwed her courage to the sticking place for a reason.

[PinkTiger]

4. I talked to her about it in 1988.

She said yes, she was aware they wanted to make a case, and this day she was really tired and was put out, and did decide to sit there. So it was a little of both.

[TechBear_Seattle]

14. Yes, that's what I remember hearing too.

It must have been a replay of that interview; I'm sure I saw it more recent than that. My point is, though, that she did not board the bus with the intent of creating the test case: she boarded the bus to go home after a hard day of work. That an opportunity arose -- and that she was willing to face that opportunity -- is what I meant about courage appearing when you least expect it.

[liberalitch]

21. Actually.... Yes and no.

After cobert did what she did it was discussed at Parks' church that if "it" happened again that an issue would be made of it..... I guess the planets just lined up right

[Bunny]

2. Her bravery was incredible. I wonder if I could summon up the

courage to do the same.

[newswolf56]

5. The most poignant verse of "We Shall Overcome" invokes...

the Rosa Parks sort of courage:

We are not afraid
We are not afraid
We are not afraid today
Deep in my heart
I know that I do believe
We are not afraid today.

It is one thing to sing such words safely ensconced in a Manhattan rally organized by the Fifth Avenue Peace Parade Committee. It is quite another to sing it in a place like Birmingham, surrounded by jeering Klansmen in the moments before the Ku Klux Kops attack with clubs, dogs and firehoses.

Rosa Parks deserves the highest honors we can give. We will be many times blest if this nation ever sees her like again.

[applegrove]

6. Isn't that one of the rumours - that she went there for a purpose. I don't

think we have to buy that "she was a plant"... at forty two - when some driver asks everyone (3 people) to move to the back so that one white person can sit down... I mean - that just would send me off like a rocket. Especially when the others (2 or three of them) got up to move to the back of the bus.

I think it makes more sense.

[LittleClarkie]

13. And it makes sense to me that the NAACP picked her case

to pursue because they knew her character and background, and felt they could be successful.

But no, me either. I don't believe she was a plant.

[applegrove]

15. I mean did the Bus driver drink some potion that made him ask

three African Americans to move to the back of the bus?

No.

So she was an activist! So what!! It is one thing to be an activist and totally another to be the intended victim of such prejudice. And she - like all AA in her community were victims day in and day out. Labeling her an activist implies she got on that bus to be a victim - when she had never been a victim before. The problem wasn't that bus - but the whole system. How exactly was she supposed to avoid all situations that could have resulted in some refusal on her part? The south was segregated - even the north was segregated in some ways. She would have had to move to another country that had no segregation.

I saw her niece talk on T.V. tonight and she said Rosa never talked about that day.

What a hero.

[LittleClarkie]

16. Sorry, I posted that before I saw the posts saying that she'd written

about that time and it was deliberate. I just thought the original comment was speculation, and didn't know it was fact.

Not, it doesn't really matter.

[applegrove]

I saw something on the news today that said - "the part about it being a

set up" was not true. Very confusing. I'm guessing they maybe are saying that she didn't plan on where and when - she just went around being a person of color and bam! if her civil rights were not slammed. And as an activist she knew she had back-up (and was therefore less intimidated to comply).

I'm sure we will get to the bottom of it.

Thank god for people like RP.

[LittleClarkie]

7. Do you think she premeditated what she did?

I guess I was always naive to that idea. I thought she was an ordinary woman and that she was simply too tired to move.

Is it naive to think that, considering that she worked for the NAACP. I prefer somehow to think that she didn't mean it as a protest. It had always been reported that way in history books I read. That she was a simple woman and on this day she just didn't feel like moving as she was tired.

[proud2BlibKansan]

9. It was all planned ahead of time

That is what I have always heard. It's sweet to think that Rosa Parks just all of a sudden one day decided to break the law. But she was involved with NAACP and her protest was planned.

[Maddy McCall]

10. Of course she did. Read about the Highland Institute in Tennessee.

She had prepared for that moment for a long time before she walked onto that bus.

[Maddy McCall]

8. She had trained for that day at the Highland Institute in Tennessee.

There's so much more to Rosa Parks than most people know. She wasn't a naive little woman. She had been preparing and training for that moment for a while at Highland.

There are some really interesting scholarly articles on Rosa and Highland. I was very surprised to learn that she was quite an accomplished activist before she ever walked onto that bus.

[SeattleGirl]

11. It still had to take an enormous amount of courage

for her to refuse to give up her seat, but I'm sure the courage was fueled by anger at how blacks had been treated. What I was not aware of, but heard last night via Anderson Cooper, was that she HAD been an activist long before 12/1/55. Her activism was sparked in part by how black soldiers were treated upon returning to the US. I think, in fact, her brother was a soldier who was treated badly -- on top of being treated badly as a black civilian before joining the military.

I've always admired this woman, and am a little embarassed to admit, though, that there is a lot I DON'T know about her. Guess I know what my next "homework" assignment will be -- look further into the life of this amazing woman.

[Maddy McCall]

12. Oh, I thoroughly agree. And the fact that she had trained for it...

Can you imagine how terrified she was? Yes, she was a very courageous woman.

If I can find those articles in my office, I'll give you the titles of them. You will only grow to admire her more.

[SeattleGirl]

17. Thank you, Maddy

I would appreciate that very much!

[Zomby Woof]

18. I'll clear up a few myths

There were 2 or 3 women before her whose candidacy to take on the bus segregation was shot down - and it was due to them not being unassailable, as you stated with the unwed pregnant woman, so that part is true.

Parks sat in the middle of the bus, called "no man's land", which was only allowed up to the point the driver wanted those seats made available to whites. It filled up with whites on the next stop, and when she was asked by the driver to move, the ONLY thing she said was a simple "no".

When he said he would call the police and have her arrested, she said "you may do that."

Those were the ONLY words she spoke on the bus that fateful day.

Years later, when asked if she was "tired" as the commonly held story went, she said she felt the same as she did every day, and that the only thing she was tired of was being deferent and holding back.

But I have no argument with your sentiment. Indeed, she was a force for humanity to be reckoned with, for which we are all better off.

[ninkasi]

19. On Dec. 1, 1955

I was twelve years old. I remember the stir the story of Rosa Parks caused in the white community in Houston, Tx. I remember my parents, and their friends discussing it. I tried to talk to my mother about it, because she and I had argued before about segregation. I thought it was wrong, and she thought it was ordered by God.

She cried a few times, and said she was afraid I would disgrace the family by taking up with the colored people, and go straight to hell for my offenses. I told her that she made me go to church, and Sunday School, (my parents didn't attend, nor did my brothers...being the only girl, I went) and that Jesus would not approve of segregation, from the lessons I had learned.

For those days, in those times, for Rosa Parks to do what she did showed courage beyond what many can imagine today. Houston was bad enough, but Birmingham was worse, or so I imagine. She was a true inspiration to all of us, black or white, who confirmed that standing up for human dignity is not always easy, but it is always, in the end, the right thing to do. May her soul be blessed, for the blessings she conferred on this country.

[applegrove]

20. Here is a link to an article that talks about the events that day on

the bush. Rosa Parks wasn't even sitting in the "white section". The bus driver - someone who she usually avoided - moved the rules on them all.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=168338&mesg_id=168338