"Rosa Parks: Who Started It All": article draft by Roosevelt Fitzgerald

ROSA PARKS: WHO STARTED IT ALL BY ROOSEVELT FITZGERALD
Many feel obligated to change their names in order to become famous.
As a matter of fact, there are some who believe that without the right name, their is no chance at fame. We can almost identify those conjured-up names at a glance. They have a rhythm to them. They are melodic. They almost shout; "Hey, I'm somebody important."
There are other names which are simplicity personified. They are so normal and ordinary that it is more than normally difficult to remember them. Many born since the era of the civil rights movement have seen or heard the name Rosa Parks without any reaction. This essay is for their introduction to her and for the remainder of us to remember the contribution she made to that movement which helped bring us out of the great morass.
It has been a long time since I saw her. I might never have seen her and she might never have become anyone which anyone who was not a family member or a close personal friend or neighbor would have ever seen and made a big to do over it had it not been for that fateful day in December of 1955.
We have them here but they really do stand apart in the south—Indian summers. Montgomery, Alabama was experiencing one of the warmest Decembers of the century in 1955 and for about that long, everything else in Montgomery had remained almost unchanged. This was especially true in regards to race relations. There was a group on the top who had access to everything and there was a group on the bottom which had access to nothing and there was a group in the middle who served as a buffer between those first two groups and who thought they had access to everything also because of the color of their skin but who, in fact, had access to nothing. The only thing
they had going for them was the illusion that somehow they were better off
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than that group on the bottom. They were not then. They had not been before and they would never be. The fact of that, however, did not alter their illusion. They were in fact unwitting pawns of an oppressive social system. They were used to carry out the latter's wishes and they were just as poor, illiterate, and without futures as those they imagined themselves to be superior to. They did not understand then and many of them do no understand now that in order to hold down anything or anybody, the holder
must be there where where that which is being held down is.
Rosa Parks had been held down all of her life. There was nothing
unusual about that. Others who resembled her racially had had the same
experience. In more ways than not, the position of subjugation she and others occupied was perceived by them as being normal for the longest time. True, those who were conscious, did not like the circumstances they found themselves in but they were the only circumstances they had known and they had to, of necessity, live with it.
For some inexplicable reason, she failed to comport herself as usual on a certain warm December day. It was the second day of the month and it was a Thursday. As usual, she had gone to work at one of the large department stores of downtown Montgomery that morning and all day she had done what she had done for many years. She altered clothing--put hems in dresses skirts, pants and whatever other millinery tasks that had to be performed. She was an experienced seamstress--one of the best--but she was not paid as though she was. Even so, she did the best work she possibly could do.
FiSjgt, she would have to stoop or kneel and pin or otherwise mark the hem of the article of clothing at just the right length with a series of straight pins which she often held between her teeth and lips or she would use a piece of chalk. Then off to the sewing room where, with haste, she
would sew and convert and whatever else had to be done. The items were
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always finished that day--never tomorrow but always that day. Each day she did her job and she did good work and afterwards she would go home and prepare dinner and care for her family.
Rosa Parks was a deeply religious woman and spent much time not only attending church but conducting her own personal life in accordance with the teachings of the Biblie. She looked after the sick, she cared for those who could not care for themselves and she never spoke harshly of anyone. She was a quiet woman and, as a black woman, she knew her place and never stepped out of line.
Then it was Thursday, December 2, 1955 and she was off work. She was tired. Christmas shopping had already begun and there was much that she had to do that day. The same work gets progressively more difficult as one gets older no matter how young one might indeed be. The body wears down and fatigue comes in different ways and sometimes it is so gradual it is imperceptible. When she left the store, she traced the path which she had taken on so many days before to the same bus stop she had gone to many, many times before. She stood there and waited and her feet hurt and finally, after what seemed like forever, the bus arrived. The door opened. She entered. She paid her fare. She took a seet near the front of the section which was set aside for "negro" use to the rear of the bus. The bus drew away from the curb. All was well.
From stop to stop, more passengers boarded the bus and soon it was filled to capacity. Those who were already on board did not notice what was in store when next the bus stopped and more passengers boarded. If those new arrivals were black, there would be no problem. They would simply go to the rear of the bus and stand. That had happened many times before. If they were white, those black passengers who sat in the frontmost seats of the rear section would be required to vacate their seats in favor of the white passengers.
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A silent drama unfolded and no one seemed at all concerned. Whatever developments there might be, there were well rehershed responses and that unfolding was not anything which anyone—black or white—on that bus—reflected on.
The bus stopped. The doors opened. There were both black and white passengers. The black passengers went to the back of the bus and stood as they had done all of their lives. The white passengers, seeing no vacant seats, reported to the driver who informed the requisite number of black seated passengers that they would have to stand to the rear. All did. Well, not all. R«a Rarks remained seated. Black passengers were startled. White passengers were startled. Maybe she had not heard. A black person might have said to her; "the driver wants you to give up your seat so that the white passengers can be seated." She did not respond and she did not move. The white passengers gasped. The driver couldn't believe his eyes. He had never had that problem before. No one downtown, had ever told him exactly what to do if the circumstance should ever present itself. He might have thought that a firm word from him would be sufficient; "you goin1 have to give up that seat auntie." Still no response or movement. "Now if you don't
give up that seat, I'm goin' have to call the police." Nothing. The driver
went to a phone. The call was made. A squad car came. Rosa Parks was taken
from the bus. She was taken downtown. Booked. Fingerprinted. Mug shots. A record
Word of these events quickly spread through the black community of Montgomery. She had been charged with violating a city ordinance. She was bailed out but the people were upset. Meetings were held that night and out of one of those, a decision to protest the arrest of Rosa Parks was made. The protest would take the form of a one day boycott of the city's busses.
The civil rights movement was underway and what had been planned to last
for one day, went on for one year and ended segregation of the bus system of Montgomery