Thank you Rosa Parks, may God have mercy on soul, rest in peace

Original Post: 25 Oct 2005

Who would ever have imagined, that a young Black women, 42 years old saying “NO” to a bus driver in Montgomery, Alabama would change history and would change America for ever.
Rosa Parks was that woman, who was simply tired of taking all of the bull and crab from Whites and who at a young age, showed she could take care of herself and defend herself with force if necessary from bully young White kids.
In those days in the south lynching of Blacks was elevated into a national past time, where White thugs, educated and uneducated all will get together and drag a young male Black and lynch him for daring to look at “their women”.
Well, Rosa Parks did not get lynched, she was able to lynch a system that tolerated and allowed legal segregation. Who in their right mind would imagine that a young Black woman of 42 years of age would be required to get up from her seat and make room for a White man? I thought in other cultures and in other countries, it is the man, who would get up and allow a young lady to sit down. Oh, I forgot, this was America of the 50’s when Blacks where allowed to ride only in the back of a bus and would have to get off the bus to make room for the Whites. It was America of the 50’s where Blacks could not even drink from the same water tap as Whites. I am not aware of any laws that require Blacks to use and travel on different roads as is the case in Israel now, where the main roads are for Jews, the secondary roads are for Arabs. Same idea.
Rosa Parks and the Black community in Montgomery decided to boycott the bus system that would take their money, the same fare as Whites and only allowed them to sit in the back and even get off to make room for Whites. 381 days made a difference.
Rosa Parks refusing to get up form here seat on the bus on that cold December 1st evening in 1955 and of course she was arrested and fined by the courts. The case was appealed to the US Supreme Court which finally, and after more than a century of segregation realized that segregation is illegal and ruled in favor of Rosa Parks. The ruling came out more than a year after the famous ruling of Brown vs. The Board of Education, which also tore down the walls of segregations in schools.
One would think that in a country like ours, it would be the legislative branch of government that will see that segregation is wrong and would do something about it. In this country, when our Congress does not have the vision or the guts to act to protect the rights of citizens, thanks God for our courts system that can see and decide on what is right and what is wrong. You can call it whatever you want, but the actions of the courts is right in any and all cases that has to do with freedoms and privacy.
The bus boycott in Montgomery propelled a young breacher with so much eloquence to the national scene and the late Dr. Marin Luther King would march on Washington and galvanize the nation and shock it out of it deep rooted racism with his famous speech “I have a dream”. Dr. King spoke for the millions of people here in this country and around the world when he declared” There comes a time, when people are tired of being trampled on by the iron feet of oppression”. Well it seems that oppression continue to be alive and well, all over the world. Thank you Rosa for making a difference and for changing the face of American, may God have mercy on your soul and my you rest in peace. You are courageous women. We will miss you. You can read a nice byline written by Elaine Woo in today’s Los Angeles Times.