ROSA PARKS: AN AMERICAN HERO

As time goes by and old wounds heal it is easy to forget the struggles that brave and rebellious people make in order to clear the way for the freedom of others. We do pause from time to time during certain times of the year to reflect on the sacrifices made by individuals but each and every day is a good time to remember American heroes such as Rosa Parks. It is impossible for those of us who did not grow up in the troubled days before integration to understand what courage it took for Rosa Parks to stand up to the segregation laws that were in effect. To us, a simple act like refusing to give up our seat on a bus doesn't sound all that drastic. To truly understand how brave Rosa Parks must have been we need to go back in time and remember the temper of the day.

Rosa Parks lived in Montgomery, Alabama in December of 1955. These were the days of unrelenting segregation. To be born black meant literally and figuratively taking a back seat to any white person, regardless of the justice of the situation. On a particular day in December Rosa Parks had had a hard day at work. She was seamstress at a local department store. It is unlikely that she anticipated what a ground breaking day this would be when she got up that day. She followed the rules of the bus by entering the front to pay her fare, exiting, and then reentering the back of the bus to take a seat in the section reserved for "coloreds." She found a set in the very first row of the section she was allowed to sit in.

The bus was crowded and it wasn't long before the bus driver expected Rosa Parks to give up her seat so that the whites would have room to sit. She gracefully and quietly declined. Refusing to give up your seat was considered a criminal act and so Rosa was arrested. This was not the first time a black woman had refused to give up her seat but in the past a fine was paid and that was the end of that. In Rosa's case, the decision was made to fight the charges. She was convicted but the event became bigger than just Rosa Parks.

The black community began a successful and prolonged bus boycott on the day of the trial and this did get the public's attention. With the support of the N.A.A.C.P. and a young Dr. Martin Luther King, Rosa's case was taken to the Supreme Court and the constitutionality of Alabama's segregation laws was struck down. And so, Ms. Rosa Parks became known as the Mother of the Modern Civil Rights Movement.

After the incident Ms. Parks and her husband settled in Detroit, Michigan. She continued working for many causes for the remainder of her life. She worked for U.S. Representative John Conyers, founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development and was deeply involved in Planned Parenthood. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996. Rosa Parks died in 2005 at the age of 92.