Fifty two years ago today, 
Rosa Parks stayed
seated on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, and the world changed.
Of course, it wasn’t that easy. And it
wasn’t a random act. Parks, a seamstress, was active in the voter registration
movement for who were then called Negroes. She’d attended a desegregation
workshop as a representative of the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP).
“(There) I
found out for the first time in my adult life that this could be a unified
society…I gained there the strength to persevere in my work for freedom not
just for blacks, but for all oppressed people."
The bus event wasn’t planned, but you
might say Parks was primed. Still, it was a signal moment in a struggle for
human equality that goes on today.
I remember learning in school about
this tired and dignified little old lady who had “spoken” truth to power against the wrong of segregation.
Somehow, that image made her arrest more worthy of
indignation. Nobody likes the idea of big scary police putting their hands on
tiny little old ladies.
But today, I am reminded that Rosa
Parks was 42 at the time. Martin Luther King Jr. was 26.
In 1955, 42-year-olds were not old but
certainly were considered mature. And that was a good thing. There was work to
do: families to raise, mortgages to pay off, business to be done, freedom to be won.
Parks went on to co-found with her husband the Rosa and Raymond Parks
Institute for Self Development to help young people pursue education, register
to vote and work toward racial peace.
In searching the Net for news about women around Parks’ age at the time, I found Sarah Jessica Parker and Teri Hatcher. Google links led to
“Older women having babies,” “Hottest women over 40,” “Fashion don’ts for women
over 40,” “Older women and younger men.”
Pages and pages of diet, exercise, and
skin care. Articles about women’s desire to be thinner, sleeker, hotter.
Nothing much about being grown up and
taking responsibility for the world.
I don’t know what’s wrong with this
picture.
Maybe
we need more buses.
