Rosa Parks died today at age 92.
My condolences to her family.
This would be a good day to reflect how much one woman of courage helped to change the USA. She helped to make the world a better place by just “sitting” for her rights.
For any who might not know much about her story this is a little bit more.
On behalf of all Americans and Humans, I thank you Rosa Parks. You were a brave and wonderful lady.
Moved from IMHO to MPSIMS.
I’ll add that no matter how much of a setup the bus ride was, it took great courage and fortitude on Ms. Parks part. I’ve admired her very much.
She apparently was no longer with us in mind before her body gave out, so I can’t get too upset; but yes, she was one of my childhood heroes too.
A great life well lived. An American who helped forced America become what it is supposed to be.
If I remember another thread right, it was a setup. I don’t think it matters. She said something that needed to be said and did something that needed to be done.
Thank you so very much, Rosa, for being the one to stand up and speak up. You’ve made the world a better place, thanks for doing your best to clear out the back of the bus!!!
Amen. Planned, unplanned, whatever. She’s one of those few people who has truly made a thankfully indelible mark on the world.
I was born in Montgomery, Alabama 11 years to the day after she made her sit-down stand a few blocks away. I grew up in a place where whites and blacks went to the same restaurants, sat in the same sections of movie theaters, etc., and yet I didn’t learn her name until I was in late elementary school. When I did it was from a section in a 5th grade reader on the Civil Rights era and our teacher, a good woman in most respects, quickly added that Rosa Park was an agitator who planned the whole thing in conjunction with MLK (wrong) and others. I heard this from many others over the next few decades; some still love to put it down as if the fact it was decided to challenge the Apartheid southern system minimized the ridiculousness of the system or the guts of the challengers.
Not mentioned is that planned or not it resulted in the arrest, fingerprinting, etc. of a peaceful woman, it cost her her job (and she was never more than middle class- she needed the money), earned her death threats, forced her to leave her family and friends to move to Detroit to avoid continual harassment, etc., and, oh yeah, THERE NEVER SHOULD HAVE BEEN SUCH AN ASININE &*#%*(#%ING LAW AS “COLORED ONLY SECTIONS” AND “COLOREDS HAVE TO SURRENDER THEIR SEATS TO WHITE PASSENGERS” in the first *&@#$*ing place! Amazing the spin some people can put on things without ever being bothered by the logic.
It was planned but it took serious chutzpah. I don’t know that I could have done it in her position. RIP Mrs. Parks.
I predict editorial cartoons portraying St. Peter at the gates escorting her to her seat right up front.
I feel the same way. I was born in Montgomery in December 1960, and remember my mother complaining that my nanny and I couldn’t travel in the same taxi - the white ones wouldn’t take her, and the black ones were afraid to take me, for fear of being accused of kidnapping.
Living in the South, we still have a long way to come in terms of equality - and I address that to all colors. I think the thing that made me actually think the most was when I saw a black kid cut on the playground in middle school - his blood was red, just like mine! Maybe some of the bullshit my racist abusive uncle had told me wasn’t true after all! Maybe a girl could grow up and do something other than pump out babies!
My condolences to her family, and my gratitude to her for actually putting a face on racism.
Mrs. Parks and my mother were born the same week in the winder of 1913.
I just can’t imagine ever having the courage that she did.
After all that she went through because of her race, she still faced discrimination as a woman. At the great march on Washington where Martin Luther King gave his “I Have a Dream Speech,” the women civil rights leaders, including Mrs. Parks, were not allowed to stand with the men at the front. (I believe Marian Anderson did stand there because she sang.)
A few years ago, I took my granddaughter to a bookstore for shopping and lunch on her birthday. As we browsed through the children’s section, I came across a book about Rosa Parks and pointed it out to her. I told her that Mrs. Parks was one of my heroes and that it was important that she learn about her and what she did.
My granddaughter reassured me that she already knew and had leaned in school. She continued shopping while I waited for her in the restaurant section of the store.
When she arrived, she had a surprise for me. She had spent some of her birthday money buying two books for me on Rosa Parks. They are now on a shelf where I keep my very favorite books.
It’s her and woman like her that let people like me - E. Indian - move freely amongst the rest of the people here in NY, and not have to live only in my own section, or be secondary to whites.
Thank you, Rosa, for making it better for all people of color.
Huh. I was born on the day she got on that bus.
I would love to see it. That would be a keeper. 
I had the great pleasure of visiting the Civil Rights museum in Memphis a couple of years ago. It has a Montgomery bus from the 50s which you are invited to board as a black person and take a seat at the front. An automated driver’s voice shouts at you three times, each more menacingly than the previous, demanding that you move to the Negro section at the back. I actually felt really embarrassed even though it was only a recorded voice and museum exhibit, and I doubt very much whether I would have had the courage to resist if confronted with the same situation in real life. Rosa Parks was certainly an incredibly brave woman.
And to think that such behaviour was actually enshrined in law so recently in the, ahem, “land fo the free”!
Bon voyage, Rosa!
Robert Fulghum mentioned this is an essay about Rosa Parks about 10 years ago.
I admire the bravery of Ms. Parks. How one person can change the country in a good way.
I don’t usually get teary when I hear about someone I never knew dying.
When I heard about Ms. Parks’ death on the radio this morning, I cried.
I will pass down her legacy to my children, and teach them to do the same.
E.
Setup? Planned? Of course it was planned, she didn’t sit down at the front of the bus by accident. She meant to do it. What’s all this about?
An ordinary woman of extraordinary courage, who, through a simple act of civil disobedience, made all of us better people. Farewell to one of the heroes of the 20th century.