A Short but Epic Journey: Rosa Parks

The Compass Rose Queen highlights the heroic journeys of women, whether fictional or historical.  Since my first post is about Eowyn from the Lord of the Rings, it is time to write about a real woman. In my graduate class last month, we watched a film about Rosa Parks.  It impacted me greatly.  I will not attempt a biography here.  This is just a review of the bus ride that changed a country.

Rosa Parks’ journey lasted less than a day, perhaps less than an hour.  But its effects have lasted more than half a century.

Rosa and her husband Raymond were activists in the case to free the “Scottsboro Boys.”    They then worked together for the NAACP where they lived in Alabama, Rosa leading a youth group in it.  In the summer of 1955, she attended an integrated (as opposed to segregated) workshop in Tennessee.  That year Rosa Parks also met Martin Luther King Jr., who was unknown at that time.  She became very determined to stand up for her rights as a human being.

That December, Mrs. Parks got on the bus and sat in the first row for “colored” people, which was right behind the last “white” row.  All was well until the bus became crowded, and the driver demanded she stand so a white man could sit in her seat.  She refused and was arrested.

This was the case that the budding civil rights movement had been waiting for.   Rosa Parks was a quiet, well-respected woman with a clean record.  At a local church, the movement gathered momentum with Martin Luther King Jr. taking leadership.  A city-wide boycott ensued.  Black people in Montgomery, Alabama, refused to ride the buses for 381 days.  That is more than a year of long journeys on foot to work every day, in all kinds of weather.  The community came together to give people rides, while others proudly marched through rain in defiance.

On November 13, 1956, the United States Supreme Court declared segregation on Montgomery buses unconstitutional.  Victory at last!   This paved the way for desegregation in many other battlefronts in the civil rights movement.

One short journey, on which a brave woman stood up (well, technically sat down) for her rights, changed America in a way it will never forget.  I hope her story inspires us all to stand up for what is right.

References taken from rosaparks.org

Photo (of a statue of Rosa Parks at the bus station in Eugene, Oregon) by Jessica Johnson

Rosa Parks Statue