DISPATCHES by Hank Kalet
By:
"A single act, a bold stroke, by a dignified African American 50 years ago dramatically altered the course of American history. Rosa Parks is a name for the ages." The Washington Post, Oct. 26
"Those who offer only words cynically tailored for the advantage of the moment, who choose posturing over the kind of bedrock integrity Mrs. Parks displayed, will fade from the national consciousness.
"That will not be the case with Rosa Parks. Not because of what she said she was a person of few words but because of what she did." Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser, Oct. 26
"She succeeded because she had right on her side and because she was willing to stand up for it by simply sitting down." The Detroit Free-Press, Oct. 26
Rosa Parks died on Monday.
Ms. Parks, called by many the "mother of the civil rights movement," played an integral role in American history, helping to jumpstart a movement that eventually led to the dismantling of the hideous edifice of legal segregation.
Her story, in its broadest outlines, is fairly well known. On Dec. 1, 1955, Ms. Parks was riding a bus home from her job at the Montgomery Fair department store when the bus driver noticed that a white passenger was standing at the front of the bus. He ordered the four black passengers sitting in the first row behind the white section an area known as "no-man’s land" to move so the white man could sit. Ms. Park’s refused and was arrested, triggering a local boycott of the bus line and a legal battle that ended with the Supreme Court ruling that segregation of city buses was unconstitutional.
The coverage, of course, has focused on Ms. Parks’ remarkable courage and grace and her willingness to literally place herself in the line of fire (remember, her act of defiance came at a time when violence against blacks was tacitly endorsed by much of the Southern power structure).
Every word of praise is deserved. But the coverage of that fateful December day in 1955 and the boycott that followed vastly simplifies what happened. Her decision not to give up her seat to a white passenger was both a singular act of courage and part of a much larger response to segregation by the black community in Montgomery.
Ms. Parks a longtime activist and the secretary of the local chapter of the NAACP was not the first to refuse to give up her seat. Two other black women had done so during the previous year one was a teenager, the other the daughter of an alcoholic and were convicted and fined for violating the city’s segregation laws. The NAACP made the determination that they would not present the best example in the press and decided not to challenge their convictions.
Ms. Parks, however, was different. As Juan Gonzalez pointed out in his Tuesday column in the New York Daily News, she "was the perfect figure to represent the civil rights movement." She was well-known and "always carried herself in such a dignified manner that she was respected even among Montgomery’s wealthiest blacks."
But without a larger movement, Ms. Parks act of bravery may have been for naught. The NAACP, the Women’s Political Council, the pastors of Montgomery’s major black churches all of them jumped into the fray, lending her support and taking her singular act and transforming it into a national cause. On Dec. 5, Montgomery’s black community began the boycott that would elevate the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to national prominence and trigger the Freedom Rides, the lunch-counter sit-ins, voter registration drives and marches across the South.
The hard work and dedication of the thousands involved in the civil rights movement have resulted in the end of legal segregation, though economic dislocation and white flight have prevented us from actually achieving everything that Ms. Parks, Dr. King and the rest of the movement sought.
But there is no denying Ms. Parks’ place in history. She will stand as a symbol for all who believe that America’s promise of freedom applies to everyone.
Hank Kalet is managing editor of the South Brunswick Post and The Cranbury Press. His e-mail is [email protected].

