The passing of a Black American icon

~Rosa Parks dies at age 92~
Rosa McCauley was born in 1913 in the sleepy town of Tuskegee, Alabama to loving parents. Her mother a school teacher and her father a carpenter. Soon she, her mother and brother moved to Pine Level, Alabama with her maternal grandparents. The hard working family was not rich, but the children needed for nothing. Rosa was guarded from the harsh realities of racist segregation. So until she was older, she did not understand that the differences between black and white Americans meant that she was destined to live as an outcast.

She graduated from the all-black Booker T. Washington High School in 1928. all though she did not graduate, she did attend Alabama State College in Montgomery. She was married in 1932. Ray Parks, a barber was very active in civil rights issues and soon Rosa joined him. She worked as a seamstress, and a housekeeper. She joined the NAACP Youth Council in 1943 and was soon elected as the Montgomery NAACP Secretary. The branch struggled to break down the barriers of racial segregation in education and public accommodations.

Soon, Montgomery bus drivers demanded that the black patrons pay in advance for their trip and then, so they wouldn't pass by the whites already seated, they were to exit the bus and then re-enter through the back door. Black Americans who disobeyed the rules were arrested and fined heavily.
In 1943 Rosa refused to leave the bus and re-enter through the back door. She asked why, when she had paid the same amount as the white patrons, and was already forced to sit in the back, should she have to walk all the way around the bus. The man became irate grabbed her by the arm and roughly escorted her from the bus. She was devastated. She would never forget that moment, nor for that matter, the bus driver.

As of 1955, her chapter of the NAACP had made little to no difference. So later that summer, some white friends of the couple paid to send Rosa to an interracial seminar in Tennessee. The seminar was meant to train people to be effective civil rights activists. She certainly had no idea that soon her training would cause her to attain fame beyond her imagination.

On Dec. 1st 1955, Rosa, paid for her fare and recognized the driver as the same man who, 12 years ago, had kicked her off the same bus. She took her seat directly behind the last row of white passengers.The driver, who undoubtedly remembered Rosa demanded that she get up and allow a white man to sit in her seat. She began to protest. The bus driver threatened to have her arrested but Rosa did not budge. Soon, several officers came aboard and arrested her.

When the NAACP heard the news, they used her arrest to spear head a Brown v. Board of Education (1954) style case to eliminate racial segregation in all issues of American life. Soon, Montgomery Churches and the NAACP used the arrest as the impetus for a boycott of the company's buses. The Baptist church formed a group called the Montgomery Improvement Association. The newly elected president of the group was a fiery young man named Martin Luther King Jr.

The year long boycott was very successful since the black citizens comprised 70% of the company's business. The Supreme Court heard the case and in 1956 desegregated the Montgomery buses, finding that further segregation of the buses was illegal.

Rosa and her family were soon the black sheep of the city and soon were forced out of town by angry white citizens. In 1957 they moved to Detroit and spent weeks looking for jobs. No one there wanted to hire them either. Then, a black State Representative by the name of John Conyers hired Rosa. She spent 25 years as his staff assistant while continuing to work for the NAACP. She soon became a Deaconess at the Saint Mathews Methodist Episcopal Church.

Rosa Parks received numerous awards and honors through out the next four decades. In 1994 she was attacked and robbed by black youths outside her home in Detroit. Although she was badly beaten, she soon recovered and continued on with her fight for racial equality.

She joined the Million man march in 1995 and was the plaintiff in a few lawsuits regarding the unauthorized use of her name and image by rap groups and various advertisers.

There was and is a place in this world for heroes like Rosa Parks. The black Americans of today owe great amounts of gratitude and honor to this woman. However, men like Louis Fericon, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have used greed and slander to make fusty the fight Rosa helped forward. Their racist tactics and tired old antics serve to undo the success she and Martin Luther King fought so hard to achieve. Americans of all races will miss Rosa and black Americans will forever benefit from the accomplishments of this fiery lady from Alabama. Lets just hope they can continue on the path she blazed, and not fall into the partisan trap set by racists who seek to exploit their fellow black Americans.