"You may do that:" Rosa Parks
PLUS: Join Ken Harbaugh, Malcolm Nance and me for an Iran War update at 11 am ET
In this 250th year of the United States, I’m writing a series called “The Cause.” “The Cause” was the initial name of the war for the independence of the United States.
Here are the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth installments.
Below is the 10th one.
“You may do that.”
Those were defiant and courageous words from a black woman named Rosa Parks within whom rose a great spirit of defiance on an ordinary day in Montgomery, Alabama.
These words were her response to the racist white bully who was threatening to call the police because she wouldn’t move backwards on the Montgomery City Bus for the recently boarded white passengers.
Later, she would recall having had her eyes opened while riding the desegregated trolley at the Fort Maxwell, the federal military base, where she worked.
Here is how she described the moment during which she rose up – by staying put:
People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn’t true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.
She was 43 years old on December 1, 1955, when she became one of four black passengers who refused the directive from a white bus driver named James Blake to move towards the rear of the bus from her occupied seat to make room for boarding white passengers. It should be noted that this wasn’t Rosa Parks’ first encounter with James Blake.
Twelve years prior, he refused to drive the bus to the next stop because Rosa Parks had dared board it through the forward doors as opposed to the rear. Blake demanded she get off the bus at the back doors and re-board. When she stepped off the bus and back into the rain, Blake cruelly closed the door and took off to the next stop, stranding her.
Even then Parks was defiant.
She vowed that she would never ride a bus with Blake again.
She didn’t keep her promise, and she changed the world.
Here is how Oprah Winfrey, titanic cultural figure, introduced the world to the beginning of Rosa Parks’ activism during a speech before the Hollywood Foreign Press Association when she was honored in 2018:
And there’s someone else, Recy Taylor, a name I know and I think you should know, too. In 1944, Recy Taylor was a young wife and mother walking home from a church service she’d attended in Abbeville, Alabama, when she was abducted by six armed white men, raped, and left blindfolded by the side of the road coming home from church. They threatened to kill her if she ever told anyone, but her story was reported to the NAACP where a young worker by the name of Rosa Parks became the lead investigator on her case and together they sought justice. But justice wasn’t an option in the era of Jim Crow. The men who tried to destroy her were never prosecuted.
Here is how Winfrey eulogized Rosa Parks, and recalled her first occasion of meeting the icon:
I grew up in the South, and Rosa Parks was a hero to me long before I recognized and understood the power and impact that her life embodied. I remember my father telling me about this colored woman who had refused to give up her seat. And in my child’s mind, I thought, “She must be really big.” I thought she must be at least a hundred feet tall. I imagined her being stalwart and strong and carrying a shield to hold back the white folks.
And then I grew up and had the esteemed honor of meeting her. And wasn’t that a surprise. Here was this petite, almost delicate lady who was the personification of grace and goodness. And I thanked her then. I said, “Thank you,” for myself and for every colored girl, every colored boy, who didn’t have heroes who were celebrated.
I thanked her then.
And after our first meeting I realized that God uses good people to do great things. And I’m here today to say a final thank you, Sister Rosa, for being a great woman who used your life to serve, to serve us all. That day that you refused to give up your seat on the bus, you, Sister Rosa, changed the trajectory of my life and the lives of so many other people in the world. I would not be standing here today nor standing where I stand every day had she not chosen to sit down. I know that. I know that. I know that. I know that, and I honor that. Had she not chosen to say we shall not — we shall not be moved.
So I thank you again, Sister Rosa, for not only confronting the one white man who[se] seat you took, not only confronting the bus driver, not only for confronting the law, but for confronting history, a history that for 400 years said that you were not even worthy of a glance, certainly no consideration. I thank you for not moving.
And in that moment when you resolved to stay in that seat, you reclaimed your humanity and you gave us all back a piece of our own. I thank you for that. I thank you for acting without concern. I often thought about what that took, knowing the climate of the times and what could have happened to you, what it took to stay seated. You acted without concern for yourself and made life better for us all. We shall not be moved.
I marvel at your will.
Rosa Parks was a defiant American who was enraged at the injustice and barbarism behind the murder of a 14-year-old black boy. The hatred and injustice were her motivation, and she took a stand.
With that stand she proved yet again that ordinary people can move the tectonic plates, and make progress towards the achievement of America’s full promise.
Rosa Parks was a great woman.
I was reading today that domestic violence, particularly homicides, has increased to alarming rates in the United States. We know who that affects predominately. Which brings me to Senator Marsha Blackburn and other MAGA legislators who opposed The Violence Against Women Act because it was expanded to protect gay women.
By their logic, violence against gay women is acceptable. Blackburn won her last election by 63 percent, including a majority of the female vote in Tennessee. We’ve lost more than just elections in this country.
May we all rise up & find the courage of Rosa Parks!