Subject: Rosa Parks honored

Last Monday, Hurricane Wilma rose up and swept through part of the South and changed the landscape of Florida for a while. Fifty years ago this December, Rosa rose up, or rather, refused to rise up, and set off a spark that changed the landscape of America forever.

Rosa Parks was a tired lady in Montgomery, Ala. one day back in 1955. She was tired from working all day. She was tired of being denied the liberties guaranteed to her in the U.S. Constitution. She was tired and she didn’t want to give up her seat on the bus. On Dec. 1, 1955, she didn’t give up her seat, and all heck broke loose.

Parks didn’t organize or lead the Montgomery Boycott. Parks didn’t organize any of the great civil rights marches or write any of the great speeches. Parks wasn’t a Freedom Rider. She wasn’t sought out by the world’s leaders for her great wisdom. She wasn’t as famous as the Rev. Martin Luther King, although without Parks, we might never have heard of King. There were, as far as I know, no Rosa Parks dolls or lunch boxes. Parks was never elected to a public office, never wrote a single piece of legislation, and never voted on a single bill.

Parks never made a defining speech where her words could bring thousands to their feet. She didn’t have to. All she had to do was walk out in front of the crowd and thousands would rise and cheer because everyone there knew how much was owed to her.

Parks worked for freedom and civil rights for all people most of her life. There will be many great men and women of all races who will be remembered for the historic work they did during this time. It will be years before historians can look back on this time and say for sure who was really great and who was foolin’ all of us. It may even be that Parks will not be considered one of the great ones. Maybe she was just in the wrong place at the right time.

Baseball and other major league sports had begun to integrate almost a decade before Parks refused to give up her seat. It would be another four years before every team in major league baseball was integrated. The Supreme Court had decided a year earlier that segregation, at least in public schools, was wrong. The times were beginning to change, but eight years after Parks refused to give up her seat, Gov. George Wallace would give his School House Door Speech. It would be another nine years until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was enacted into law.

It may be that none or some or all of these things would have come to pass if Parks had quietly given up her seat that day.

But, she didn’t give up her seat, and that certain intangible icon that is so important to causes of great significance was born. Parks became immortal when she simply decided one day to demand her rights.