“Can I come watch with you, Papa? There’s no school tomorrow.”
Papa nodded and motioned with his left hand for her to join him on the front porch. His right hand remained on the rifle across his lap. “Come on, Sugar. But you sit light, y’hear? Be ready. ‘Member what I told you?”
“Yessir. I’m to run inside but shut the door easy, and tell everybody to skedaddle to the creek, and run.”
“That’s my girl. No KKK Klan is going to mess with us, right? Now, recite for me Psalm 23 soft and slow. Such beautiful words and promises!”
Six-year-old Rosa settled herself in the rocker next to her grandfather, confident he would keep the family safe through the night. She began to recite the favorite psalm.
Violence never came to the McCauley home in Pine Level, Alabama, but throughout her growing up years there and then in Montgomery, Rosa endured the burden of racial injustice against blacks, including different (and deficient) schools and libraries, separate restaurants and water fountains.
One time a white boy shoved Rosa hard from behind. She was expected to endure such abuse without retaliation, but Rosa shoved back. The boy’s mother witnessed the incident and bellowed, “Who do you think you are?”
Rosa courageously replied, “I won’t be pushed around by your son or anyone else.” Then, in spite of her pounding heart, Rosa calmly turned and walked away. The mother let the matter lie.[1]
In 1932 at age nineteen, Rosa married Raymond Parks. He was an activist-member of the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. A decade later, Rosa’s growing frustration with the status quo led her to join also. She eagerly learned about civil disobedience and served as secretary to the local and then state organization.
(NAACP Meeting in Montgomery, about 1947)
Along with many blacks in the South, Rosa suffered daily humiliation on the city bus, as she rode to and from work. Black passengers were required to pay their fare at the front, then get off and re-enter the bus through the back to sit in the rear. If the bus became crowded, black people had to give their seats to whites.
But on December 1, 1955, Rosa refused to relinquish her seat—not because she was physically exhausted, as some have said. No, she was tired of mistreatment because of the color of her skin.
Enough was enough.
“When that white driver waved his hand and ordered us up and out of our seats,” she later recalled, “I felt a determination cover my body like a quilt on a winter night.[2]
“God’s peace flooded my soul, and my fear melted away. All people were equal in the eyes of God, and I was going to live like the free person God created me to be. I refused to move.”[3]
Instantly Rosa felt infused with God’s strength. Police arrested her, put her in jail, and charged a $14 fine, but she remained composed through the ordeal. They released Rosa that evening.
As news of her arrest spread, more people—black and white—began to express indignation over the evil of segregation. Leaders in the NAACP decided to establish a boycott of the Montgomery bus company until the law was changed.
Supporters knew they would need God’s wisdom, strength, and perseverance. A prayer meeting was scheduled, and a young minister addressed the crowd: Martin Luther King, Jr.
“We must protest the law of the land because it violates God’s law,” he said. “But violence is not the answer. It is our duty to protest segregation, but we must do so with dignity and Christian love. Join me in praying that the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will soon shine over our great nation.”[4]
Boycott participants (which included blacks and whites) had to find alternate transportation. Many walked up to several miles to work and then home again. Churches helped to find rides for some. Others were given rides by coworkers—again, black and white.
Of course, opposition came quickly. False arrests, harassment, and even bombings occurred, yet the boycott continued. The bus company was losing thousands of dollars and began supporting integrated seating. City commissioners, however, would not back down.
Meanwhile, Rosa’s attorney, Fred D. Gray, took the case from Montgomery all the way to the Supreme Court. A year later, the regulation demanding black people to give up their bus seats to whites was declared unconstitutional.
That decision created a domino effect. If separation was wrong on buses, it was wrong in schools, restaurants, libraries, and elsewhere. Slowly and painfully, one segregation-law after another was abolished.
That pain would impact Raymond and Rosa. They had to leave Montgomery because of harassment and death threats. Rosa responded by spending long hours in prayer, after which “an intense calm swept over her.”[5]
The couple eventually settled in Detroit. From 1965-1988 Rosa worked for Michigan Congressman John Conyers. She remained active in the civil rights movement for sixty years and wrote several books.
Upon her death in 2005, then-Governor Bob Riley of Alabama said, “Rosa Parks will always be remembered as a courageous woman who quietly confronted injustice, and in so doing, changed a nation.”[6]
No doubt Rosa Parks would agree.
[1] https://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/church-history-for-kids/rosa-parks-and-the-bus-ride-that-changed-america-11635083.html
[2] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20130401JJ.shtml
[3] https://canonjjohn.com/2021/10/23/heroes-of-the-faith-rosa-parks/
[4] https://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/church-history-for-kids/rosa-parks-and-the-bus-ride-that-changed-america-11635083.html
[5] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20130401JJ.shtml, quoting from Jeanne Theoharis’ biography, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks
[6] https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/civil-rights-pioneer-rosa-parks-dead-at-92-found-strength-in-scripture-church/
[7] Sinclair Ferguson quote from Grow in Grace, 33-34.
Other sources:
https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/rosa-parks-journey-as-a-civil-rights-icon
Photo credits: http://www.flickr.com (Pat Henson); http://www.flickr.com; http://www.picryl.com; http://www.flickr.com; wwwflickr.com (Jim Forest); http://www.flickr.com; http://www.picryl.com; rawpixel.com.
From the Inside Out 