Rosa Parks: A True Legacy

“She sat down in order that we all might stand up - and the walls of segregation came down…”
- Civil Rights Leader Jesse Jackson

Rosa Parks, who is commonly known as the African American woman who refused to give up her seat to a white man, died last night, peacefully in her sleep (BBC). She will be remembered as the spark that started the fuel-laden civil rights movement. Although she was just a seamstress at the age of 42, she refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man. She was fined $14 and arrested. To many African Americans she was the one person who had the courage and tenacity to stand up against segregation. Without her, it is quite possible that African Americans would still be experiencing extreme racism through segregation. Not only was she an agent of change in the United States, but the fact that she brought about change in a peaceful manner is what amazes me. December 1st 1955 will be a day greatly remembered because of Park’s peaceful protest against segregation. While she was arrested, she started an African American boycott of buses that lasted 381 days and was led by Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., who at that time was almost unknown, but who still helped start the transportation desegregation movement. Rosa Parks was the inspiration for activists for years to come, and she was eventually awarded with Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996, and the Congressional Gold Medal. These are the highest honor anyone can recieve without being in the military. United States history is often described as:

“In many ways, history is marked as before, and after, Rosa Parks.”
- Jesse Jackson

You can find the obituary for Rosa Parks here, and you can post a tribute to her here.