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Dissent Fall 2001 NOTEBOOK Rosa Parks: Angry, Not Tired Peter Dreier cause of my color.’’ Discussing her grandfather, Sylvester Edwards, she wrote, “I remember that sometimes he would call white men by their first names, or their whole names, and not say, he way we learn history shapes ‘Mister.’ How he survived doing all those kinds how we think about the present and of things, and being so outspoken, talking that the future. Consider what most big talk, I don’t know, unless it was because AmericansT know about Rosa Parks, who died he was so white and so close to being one of last October at age ninety-two. them.” In the popular legend, Parks is portrayed In the 1930s, she and her husband, as a tired old seamstress in Montgomery, Ala- Raymond Parks, a barber, raised money for the bama, who, on the spur of the moment after a defense of the Scottsboro Boys, nine young, hard day at work, decided to resist the city’s black men falsely accused of raping two white segregation law by refusing to move to the back women. Involvement in this controversial cause of the bus on December 1, 1955. She is typi- was extremely dangerous for southern blacks. cally revered as a selfless individual who, with In 1943, Parks became one of the first one spontaneous act of courage, triggered the women to join the Montgomery chapter of the bus boycott and became, as she is often called, National Association for the Advancement of “the mother of the civil rights movement.” Colored People and served for many years as Although a number of books—including chapter secretary and director of its youth Taylor Branch’s Parting the Waters, Stewart group. In the 1940s and 1950s, the NAACP Burns’s Daybreak of Freedom, and Parks’s au- was considered a radical organization by most tobiography, My Story—provide a complete southern whites, especially politicians and po- chronicle, most of the obituaries for Parks lice officials. Joining the NAACP put its mem- lacked historical context and trivialized the ef- bers at risk of losing jobs and being subject to forts that it took to destroy Jim Crow. vigilante violence. Also in 1943, Parks made What’s missing from the popular legend is her first attempt to register to vote. Twice she the reality that Parks was a veteran activist was told she didn’t pass the literacy test, which whose defiance of segregation laws was not an was a Jim Crow invention to keep blacks from isolated incident but a lifelong crusade. Also voting. In 1945, she passed the test and be- downplayed is that Parks was part of an ongo- came one of the few blacks able to exercise ing movement whose leaders had been wait- the “right” to vote. As NAACP youth director, ing for the right moment to launch a campaign Parks helped black teenagers organize protests against bus segregation. In hindsight, it may at the city’s segregated main public library be- appear that the boycott’s success was inevi- cause the library for blacks had fewer (and table. In fact, its effectiveness was the result more outdated) books, but blacks were not al- of leaders’ decisions about tactics and strate- lowed to study at the main branch or browse gies and their capacity to mobilize thousands through its stacks. of ordinary people in a complex, year-long One of Parks’s closest allies was E.D. grassroots challenge to the city’s political and Nixon, former chair of the Alabama NAACP economic establishment. and a leader of the nation’s first all-black labor Parks recalled, “I had almost a life history union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Por- of being rebellious against being mistreated be- ters. Nixon—a protégé of A. Philip Randolph, 88 ■ DISSENT / Winter 2006 NOTEBOOK a socialist agitator, writer, and union organizer to go downtown and work for white people,” who founded the Brotherhood with the dual Parks recalled. purpose of promoting workers’ rights and civil In 1954, soon after the Supreme Court’s rights—was a gifted organizer and strategist. Brown decision outlawing school segregation, Nixon, Parks, and other NAACP leaders had Jo Ann Robinson, an African American profes- frequently talked about challenging sor at the all-black Alabama State College, and Montgomery’s segregated bus system and the a leader of Montgomery’s Women’s Political bus drivers’ abusive treatment of black riders. Council (WPC), wrote a letter to Montgom- ery mayor W.A. Gayle, saying that “there has arks was also friends with (and occa- been talk from 25 or more local organizations sional seamstress for) Clifford and Vir- of planning a city-wide boycott of buses.” By P ginia Durr, white, upper-crust New Deal the following year, the WPC made plans for a progressives who had been active in civil rights boycott and was waiting for the right person efforts—he as a lawyer, she as a volunteer. Mrs. to be arrested—someone who would agree to Durr encouraged (and put up the money for) test the segregation laws in court, and who was Parks to attend a ten-day interracial workshop “above reproach.” during the summer of 1955 at the Highlander In 1955, two teenage girls—Claudette Folk School, a training center for union and Colvin and Mary Louise Smith—were arrested civil rights activists in rural Tennessee. in separate incidents for refusing to give up their Founded by Myles Horton in 1932, Highlander seats, but Nixon decided that neither of them was one of the few places where whites and was the right person around whom to mobilize blacks— rank-and-file activists and left-wing the community. Parks, in contrast, was a pillar radicals— could participate as equals. of the black community. She had graduated from Throughout its history, but particularly during high school, which was rare for a black woman the civil rights movement (Martin Luther King, in Montgomery then. At forty-two, she had a Jr., Andrew Young, Fannie Lou Hamer, John wide network of friends and admirers from her Lewis, and Stokely Carmichael all attended church and civil rights activities. workshops there), Highlander faced hostility On Thursday, December 1, 1955, Parks and repression from local and national right- finished her work at the Montgomery Fair de- wing politicians, and was briefly shut down in partment store, boarded a city bus, and sat 1961 for violating state laws regarding segre- with three other blacks in the fifth row, the gation. At the workshop that Parks attended, first row that blacks were allowed to occupy. civil rights activists talked about strategies for A few stops later, the front four rows were implementing integration. filled with whites. One white man was left For Parks, “One of my greatest pleasures standing. According to law, blacks and whites there was enjoying the smell of bacon frying could not occupy the same row, so the bus and coffee brewing and knowing that white driver asked all four of the blacks seated in folks were doing the preparing instead of me. the fifth row to move. Three acquiesced, but I was 42 years old, and it was one of the few Parks refused. The driver called the police and times in my life up to that point when I did had Parks arrested. not feel any hostility from white people.” The “People always say that I didn’t give up my Highlander experience strengthened Parks’s re- seat because I was tired, but that isn’t true,” solve, showing her that it was possible for Parks later explained. “I was not tired physi- blacks and whites to live in “an atmosphere of cally, or no more tired than I usually was at complete equality” and without what she called the end of a working day. No, the only tired “any artificial barriers of racial segregation.” I was, was tired of giving in.” Bus segregation had long been a source of Because of her reputation and web of anger for southern blacks, including those in friendships, word of Parks’s arrest spread Montgomery, the state capital. “It was very hu- quickly. Nixon called the police to find out the miliating having to suffer the indignity of riding specifics, but was told that it was “none of your segregated buses twice a day, five days a week, damn business.” He asked Clifford Durr to call, DISSENT / Winter 2006 ■ 89 NOTEBOOK who soon found out the circumstances of nized fund-raisers to raise money for gas and Parks’s arrest. Nixon went to the jail, posted car repairs to keep the carpool system going. Parks’s bond, and asked her for permission to About seventeen thousand African Ameri- use her case to challenge the city’s bus segre- cans—almost all of the city’s black bus riders— gation laws in court and in the streets. participated in the boycott, despite threats from employers and others that doing so could hat followed is one of the most cost them their jobs. amazing examples of effective orga- Throughout the year, MIA leaders success- W nizing in American history. That fully used church meetings, sermons, rallies, night, several black community leaders met to songs, and other activities to help maintain the develop an action plan. Robinson mimeo- black community’s spirits, nonviolent tactics, graphed leaflets urging Montgomery’s blacks and resolve against the almost monolithic op- to stay off the city buses on Monday, when position of the city’s white business and politi- Parks would appear in court. They circulated cal leaders. the leaflets among the city’s segregated school Montgomery police arrested the carpool system, churches, civic groups, and work- drivers for minor (and often nonexistent) traf- places.
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