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Civil Rights Activist Rosa Parks Dies at 92
Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2005 8:36 am
by AYHJA
Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2005 11:55 am
by deepdiver32073
Definitely!
Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2005 6:01 pm
by Bot
92. That's a long life.
Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2005 7:49 pm
by SpeedDemon
May she rest in peace.....
Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2005 11:40 pm
by Gaara-San
R.I.P.
Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2005 5:16 am
by trashtalkr
She lived a great life and may she rest in peace
Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2005 3:46 pm
by raum
Actually, I didn't like her. I heard her speak and I felt she mis-informed and mis-informing and her only only claim to fame was refusing to move to the back of the bus, which by the time she had done it, had happened several times - but had not got the exposure she warranted for her NAACP contacts.
Her near deification is completely unjustified, and I think lady liberty shed a tear when Outcast got sued for using her name in a song!
In the infamous words of Old Eddie - "Rosa Parks ain't do nothing but sit her black ass down."
That's my sentiment, exactly... with one exception.
The problem is that it was not that she sat down... it's that she wouldn't get up with three other blacks when a lone white man got on the bus. When she had sat on the bus, this seat had been in the "colored" section... which was marked by a movable sign. A white man wanted to sit down, and the driver moved the sign, and Rosa wouldn't wouldn't get up.
Jackie Robinson was far more brave eleven years before.
In 1944 Jackie Robinson took a similar, but lesser-known, stand with an Army officer in Fort Hood, Texas, refusing to move to the back of a bus. He was brought before a court martial, which cold have resulted in his execution. He was acquitted him. The NAACP had additionally considered but rejected some earlier protesters deemed unable or unsuitable to withstand the pressure of a legal challenge to segregation laws. That man risked life, career, and credibility. props.
Parks was not the first African American to refuse to give up her seat to a white person. The NAACP accepted and litigated other cases before, such as that of Irene Morgan, ten years earlier, which resulted in a victory in the Supreme Court on Commerce Clause grounds. That victory only overturned state segregation laws as applied to actual travel in interstate commerce, such as interstate bus travel. Black leaders had begun to build a case around a 15-year-old girl's arrest for refusing to relinquish her bus seat, and Mrs. Parks had been among those who were raising money for the girl's defense. However, when they learned that the Irene was pregnant but unmarried, they decided that she was an unsuitable symbol for their cause. An old defenseless woman was a better case builder and crowd motivator than a pregnant teenager. The money they had been accumulating for Irene's case was finally used in Rosa Park's defense.
May Rosa Parks rest in peace, but be kept in perspective. But what about Irene?
vertical,
raum