Rosa Parks RIP
It is sometimes the simplest of acts that change the world.
Rosa Parks was not just an ordinary colored cleaning woman who would sit and take whatever whitie shoveled out, but rather a longstanding member of the Montgomery, Alabama NAACP and (as it turned out) a pivotal part of the nascent civil rights movement down there. She shot a broadside across the bow of whitie's arrogant superiority on that December 1st, 1955 afternoon and helped begin the end of unequal treatment, under the law, for blacks in the south (and north too).
She was sitting in the exclusive white section of a city bus (which blacks were allowed when it was not full) when after filling up, a white man "asked" her to get up and move to the colored section. The driver came back and suggested that if Mrs. Parks did not remove herself to the rear of the bus she would be arrested. Most whites in the south thought at the time that this was a perfectly reasonable part of the relationship between the two races, and it was certainly a curious thing that anyone would quibble with it. After all, this was a long established tradition between them, and besides, hadn't they always been good to their niggers?
Rosa Park's feet hurt that day, and goddamn it, let the white man take any number of seats available elsewhere on the bus (God forbid he should sit with colored...he might bring their smell home). But he wanted his rightful place in white society. And how dare this colored girl (she was 42 at the time) question the authority which allowed them their peaceful, second class citizenship.
Rosa Parks was hauled off of the bus, booked and fingerprinted and charged with breaking the law that made that one little seat she had, with her tired feet, and modest demeanor, a white seat, not available to colored when some old cracker fart wanted it.
From then on, nothing was the same. Through the years, Mrs. Parks was an icon and encouragement to others, black and white, who challenged the system of establishment hate. The south didn't really take care of their niggers so well. They were a nuisance.
They would soon find that they were a people too.
Rest well, Rosa Parks. Your work is done.
Joe Postove
Rosa Parks was not just an ordinary colored cleaning woman who would sit and take whatever whitie shoveled out, but rather a longstanding member of the Montgomery, Alabama NAACP and (as it turned out) a pivotal part of the nascent civil rights movement down there. She shot a broadside across the bow of whitie's arrogant superiority on that December 1st, 1955 afternoon and helped begin the end of unequal treatment, under the law, for blacks in the south (and north too).
She was sitting in the exclusive white section of a city bus (which blacks were allowed when it was not full) when after filling up, a white man "asked" her to get up and move to the colored section. The driver came back and suggested that if Mrs. Parks did not remove herself to the rear of the bus she would be arrested. Most whites in the south thought at the time that this was a perfectly reasonable part of the relationship between the two races, and it was certainly a curious thing that anyone would quibble with it. After all, this was a long established tradition between them, and besides, hadn't they always been good to their niggers?
Rosa Park's feet hurt that day, and goddamn it, let the white man take any number of seats available elsewhere on the bus (God forbid he should sit with colored...he might bring their smell home). But he wanted his rightful place in white society. And how dare this colored girl (she was 42 at the time) question the authority which allowed them their peaceful, second class citizenship.
Rosa Parks was hauled off of the bus, booked and fingerprinted and charged with breaking the law that made that one little seat she had, with her tired feet, and modest demeanor, a white seat, not available to colored when some old cracker fart wanted it.
From then on, nothing was the same. Through the years, Mrs. Parks was an icon and encouragement to others, black and white, who challenged the system of establishment hate. The south didn't really take care of their niggers so well. They were a nuisance.
They would soon find that they were a people too.
Rest well, Rosa Parks. Your work is done.
Joe Postove
posted by Mr. Liberty at 10:48 AM
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