Holte's corner

I don't mean this to sound disparaging but I clearly remember thirty years ago finding out that refusing to give up her seat was not a spontaneous act but a well thought out one. There already was an organized movement and being that Rosa Parks was a person of unimpeachable character she was chosen as the person to get arrested. That was something that wasn't generally known then but she herself and others said it was so. It seems now that the myth of one person standing up for justice is more important than the facts. Her own statements in more recent years seemed to confirm that myth. I guess it is a better story but I don't believe that it's true. Never the less Rosa Parks has been an inspiration to millions. I have heard that when Nelson Mandela came to the U.S. there was a large gathering of people chanting his name. He saw Rosa Parks in the crowd and he began chanting her name. She had been such an inspiration to him those many years in prison.

clown hidden

It really doesn't matter whether her sense of "I won't take it any more" was on "poirpose" or spontaneous. It still was an act of courage.
http://www.grandtimes.com/rosa.html

"Rosa Parks was physically tired, but no more than you or I after a long day's work. In fact, under other circumstances, she would have probably given up her seat willingly to a child or elderly person. But this time Parks was tired of the treatment she and other African Americans received every day of their lives, what with the racism, segregation, and Jim Crow laws of the time.

"Our mistreatment was just not right, and I was tired of it," writes Parks in her recent book, Quiet Strength, (ZondervanPublishingHouse, 1994). "I kept thinking about my mother and my grandparents, and how strong they were. I knew there was a possibility of being mistreated, but an opportunity was being given to me to do what I had asked of others."