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In the grand scheme of things, what Rosa Parks didn’t wasn’t significant.
As already stated, there were many cases before here where blacks refused to get to the back of the bus. Civil disobedience among blacks who were actively protesting wasn’t uncommon at that time.
It’s just another small story in history that gets blown out of proportion, at the cost of the truth.
Quote:
Colvin and her family have been fighting for recognition. In 2016, the Smithsonian Institution and its National Museum of African-American History and Culture were called out by Colvin and her family asking for Colvin to be given a more prominent mention in the history of the civil rights movement. The museum has a section dedicated to Rosa Parks, which Colvin doesn’t want taken away, but her family’s goal is to get the historical record right, and for officials to include this part of history. Colvin was not even invited when the Smithsonian formally dedicated the museum, which opened to the public in September 2016.[25]
“All we want is the truth, why does history fail to get it right?” Colvin’s sister, Gloria Laster, said. “Had it not been for Claudette Colvin, Aurelia Browder, Susie McDonald, and Mary Louise Smith there may not have been a Thurgood Marshall, a Martin Luther King or a Rosa Parks.
In the grand scheme of things, what Rosa Parks didn’t wasn’t significant.
As already stated, there were many cases before here where blacks refused to get to the back of the bus. Civil disobedience among blacks who were actively protesting wasn’t uncommon at that time.
It’s just another small story in history that gets blown out of proportion, at the cost of the truth.
Its largely because of people like Claudette Colvin and Rosa Parks that desegregation of buses, public facilities, and accommodations occurred in America. I suspect Rosa Park's story was covered more than Colvin's story was because it was impetus for the Montgomery bus boycott. Even though both did the same thing in Montgomery.
Standing up and refusing to move to the "black only" section of the bus took courage. I don't regard either story as a "small story". Rosa Park's story, in particular, turned out to be the prelude to great change.
I'm not clear after reading your post about the following:
Its largely because of people like Claudette Colvin and Rosa Parks that desegregation of buses, public facilities, and accommodations occurred in America. I suspect Rosa Park's story was covered more than Colvin's story was because it was impetus for the Montgomery bus boycott. Even though both did the same thing in Montgomery.
Standing up and refusing to move to the "black only" section of the bus took courage. I don't regard either story as a "small story". Rosa Park's story, in particular, turned out to be the prelude to great change.
I'm not clear after reading your post about the following:
1. Why it was a small story?
2. How it was blown out of proportion?
3. How this was done at the cost of the truth?
I was pretty clear with my post. Refusing to go to the back of the bus wasn't uncommon among blacks protesting civil rights as well as other forms of civil disobedience (See the picture of the black person getting attacked by a German Shepard police dog).
Rosa Parks didn't do anything that was unprecedented. She's certainly no MLK or Barack Obama.
It's the equivalent of me, a black man, doing something that others blacks have already done yet being celebrated for it at the cost of their recognition. All she did was sit on a bus and it's not much of a compelling story. Certainly nothing that most black youth would appreciate.
And Octavius V. Catto staged a protest on Philadelphia street cars in 1865. But that doesn't minimize the fact that it was the arrest of Rosa Parks that launched the Montgomery bus boycott, and the put the national spotlight on Martin Luther King. That's why she is remembered.
I thought it was common knowledge that Rosa Parks was a test case. For that matter, Plessy v Ferguson was also setup.
Yep. Next thing you know, someone will be running around shouting, "Washington never even chopped down that cherry tree! It's lies! All lies, I tells ya!".
Heller. Griswold. Scopes. Test cases all, among many others.
The notion that the Rosa Parks incident was planned doesn't diminish her at all. But for those who want something, anything, to diminish her, it's all they have. So they run with it.
Parks was secretary of the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP. She had recently attended the Highlander Folk School, a Tennessee center for training activists for workers' rights and racial equality.
...Although never a member of the Communist Party, she attended meetings with her husband.
...co-founder of the Highlander School Donald Lee West, was published. According to information obtained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, West was the District Director of the Communist Party in North Carolina...
Wow now people think that planned. Everything is a conspiracy nowadays..
There are two groups of people here scrutinizing what Parks' did.
One group is simply interested in portraying history accurately. I have no problem with this. If someone wants to add to the historical narrative surrounding the Montgomery Bus Boycott than that is fine with me. Obviously, more people were involved than Rosa Parks. If they want to point out that Parks' actions were planned and were part of an organized protest than more power to them. I love history and the more accurate and detailed it is, the more I like it. It also useful to look at various tactics used to achieve civil rights and criticize them for different reasons.
However, there is a second group that looks for ways to try to diminish the civil rights movement and all those who participated within it. They spout nonsense like the civil rights movement was a "communist front". According to them, MLK and his supporters were all communists and subversives who were taking their direction from the Soviet Union with the object of undermining the USA. Many feel that states and communities had a "right" to engage in racial segregation and they bemoan civil rights legislation and the court decisions that have upheld it. I suspect it was the same group that would argue that black people were happy as slaves working on the plantation. If you read carefully, you can pick up on who is in this second group. They don't just add to the narrative, they have to bash someone in the civil rights movement. They seek to diminish the accomplishments of people who gave much of their lives to obtain civil rights. They ultimately seek not to add to history, but are "revisionists" who want to write it completely differently.
Its the second group that doesn't deserve our respect or consideration.
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