A dignified hero, a moral force
The nation has rightly sung the praises of Rosa Parks, who died Monday at the age of 92. She truly was one of the great heroes of the 20th century. But why her? Other black citizens had protested segregated seating on buses, and she wasn’t the first person to be arrested in her hometown for refusing to yield to a white rider.
The answer is dignity. The humble seamstress became a test case for Montgomery’s racist law because her character and demeanor were unassailable. Often, heroes are anointed because of acts involving great physical prowess. Parks’ strength lay in her resolve to do nothing when the bus driver asked her to surrender her seat on Dec. 1, 1955. When police arrived, she was arrested and calmly left without incident.
Nine months before that, a Montgomery teenager, Claudette Colvin, refused to move from her bus seat. When police arrived, the screaming teenager was forcibly removed. Police accused her of clawing and scratching. Later, it was discovered that she was pregnant and the father was a married man. The NAACP decided they needed someone else for a test case.
That someone was Rosa Parks. After her arrest on a Wednesday, a boycott was organized and launched on the following Monday. That night a 26-year-old Baptist minister named Martin Luther King Jr. pointed to Parks’ character in whipping up support at a church meeting.
“And since it had to happen, I’m happy it happened to a person like Mrs. Parks, for nobody can doubt the boundless outreach of her integrity. Nobody can doubt the height of her character; nobody can doubt the depth of her Christian commitment.”
Parks’ quiet dignity provided a powerful counterpoint to the brutish behavior of Montgomery officials, the White Citizens Council and the Ku Klux Klan. Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Montgomery’s caste system for bus riders was unconstitutional. The ruling, coming just a year after Brown vs. Board of Education, which struck down school segregation, helped propel a movement that would result in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
In challenging the Montgomery bus rules, Parks was taking on decades of institutionalized racism. She noted in her later years that she didn’t foresee great change arising from her protest. And she was plenty scared, fearing a beating that would never come.
Parks’ calm, nonviolent protest became the model for demonstrations throughout the South. The movement was successful because it seized the moral high ground.
Parks was a moral force throughout her life because she refused to exchange her dignity for personal gain. While she wasn’t alone among the heroes of the civil rights movement, there’s no question that she elevated the nation that day by choosing to remain seated.