She Stood Up by Sitting Down

Mama Rosa Parks 4FEB2005 - 24Oct20005

It's hard to believe that the passing of this Civil Rights icon was alive to tell about the horrors she witnessed first hand as a black woman in 20th century America. The movement she was about to spawn began on December 1, 1955. I would not be born for another year. Some of my earliest memories are of going to a department store and seeing a "Whites Only" rest room and a separate drinking fountain for "Colored". I was raised in a household that didn't tolerate racism and for that, I am profoundly grateful. My father was very much a part of the Civil Rights movement in the city where we lived. He was not too respected by the masses for his activism at the time. He stood up for what he believed much like Rosa Parks did. He didn't waver.
Today, so many people in this country have just sighed and resigned themselves to not becoming more active in making a stand. We're too concerned with other things. Had Rosa Parks not been so adamant in her refusal to move to the back of the bus, who knows how many more inhumane atrocities would have occurred before someone sat down to stand up?