Rosa Parks (1955, Montgomery, Alabama)
The stereotypical image of Rosa Parks sees her a symbol of virtuous black womanhood. Rosa is an honest, well-mannered, old woman who simply could not muster the courage to stand. As a grandmotherly figure, all sexual aspects of her character are removed. In the boycott campaign that followed, Jo Ann Robinson, one of its leaders, played on the idea of the historic destruction of black families, stating: “Next time it may be you, or your daughter, or your mother”. The United States Congress called her the “mother of the freedom movement”. Rosa Parks became a quiet victim and a solemn symbol.
What this misses, however, is that public memory has wiped her history as a defiant activist. As I mentioned earlier in the Recy Taylor case, Rosa actually worked for the NAACP. In her capacity as secretary of the NAACP, Rosa investigated the rape, and, along with other activists, organized the Committee for Equal Justice for Mrs. Recy Taylor. She also helped work on the case attempting to bring justice to those men that murdered Emmet Till. Till was a fourteen-year-old African-American lynched by a community in Mississippi in 1955 after a white woman said she was offended by him in her family’s grocery store. Rosa thus worked relentlessly to ensure justice for other African-Americans.
Rosa Parks was in fact only forty-two-years-old when she refused to stand on a bus She paid her fare, sat in an empty seat in the first row of the back seats reserved for black Americans. When more white Americans boarded the bus, the driver moved the sign for ‘coloured’ people back a row. Rosa refused to move. Later, talking about the event, she recalls “I thought of Emmet Till and I just couldn’t go back”. It was not old age that had her feeling weary, it was a defiant move.
The driver called the police to arrest Parks. The police charged Parks with a violation of chapter six, section eleven of the segregation law of the Montgomery City code. The president of the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP, Edgar Nixon, and the leader of the Pullman Porters Union, Clifford Durr, bailed her out of jail that same evening. Nixon then contacted Jo Ann Robinson, member of the Women’s Political Council, about Rosa’s case. Acknowledging the respectable nature of Rosa Parks, Robinson believed that now was the time to seize the opportunity and rally around a figure that nobody could possibly object to.
On Sunday, 4th December 1955, black churches in the area, and the Montgomery Advertiser spread the word of the plans for a Montgomery Bus Boycott. The boycott called for respectful treatment, black drivers, and for the middle of the bus seating to be handled on a first-come basis. The next day, the court charged Parks with disorderly conduct and violating a local ordinance. They fined her $10 and $4 in court costs. Parks appealed her convicted and formally challenged the legality of racial segregation. Rosa Parks became a monumental catalyst in the fight for civil rights. She raised international awareness of the plight they faced and helped to build the movement further.