Sleep Well, Sister

On Monday night, the mother of the civil rights movement passed away. Rosa Lee McCauley Parks was 92 years old when her God called her home.
   While many know at least of her fateful decision not to give up her seat on the Montgomery, Alabama bus that day in 1955, few realize how much more there was to this woman's story. Parks had become an activist long before that fateful day. Married in 1932 to Raymond Parks, Rosa and her husband had been active in various civil rights causes, such as voter registration, at a time when those involving themselves in such activities knew they might pay with their lives for their bravery. Rosa worked with the NAACP and in 1943 was elected as the Montgomery branch secretary. In the summer of 1955, she went to Tennessee where she took a two-week inter-racial seminar to train for civil rights activism. She was ready when the bus driver ordered her to move on that December day.
   The story goes that she was tired after a day at work, but Parks herself has said that she was no more tired than she was normally was on any other workday. Rather than feeling physically tired, she says her spirit was tired of all the unfair practises, all the segregation she and every other black citizen of the States were forced to endure. When she boarded the bus, Rosa recognized the driver as the same one who had her evicted from his bus twelve years earlier when she had paid her fare and then refused to leave the bus and re-enter through the back doors. This was common practice, often insisted upon so that blacks wouldn't offend white passengers by walking past them in their front-of-the-bus seats. On that December 1st, 1955, this same bus driver insisted she get up from her seat, but the determined woman stayed seated. The bus driver called the police, and had her removed. Her decision that day is acknowledged by historians as the real beginning of the civil rights movement.
   Parks stayed involved in the movement, spending many years in demand as a speaker, among other things. In 1998 Rosa Parks was presented with the first International Freedom Conductor Award given by the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, and in 1999, President Bill Clinton gave her the Congressional Gold Medal, the United States' highest civilian honour. When I was still teaching, I taught every class about her, about the bravery and determination she showed. I used Rosa Parks every year as an example of just how much difference one person really can make in their world, how much they can affect the lives of everyone around them.
   Thank you, Sister Rosa. Thanks for your inspiration and example, for making our world a much, much better place. Sleep well, Sister.