Im two days late on the anniversary of Rosa Parks not giving up her bus seat, because Ive been searching for the real information we and our kids need, not the myth thats been helping to turn back the clock on civil rights and so much of the general social, labor, peace, and environmental progress of that era. People always say that I didnt give up my seat because I was tired, but that isnt true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in. (Rosa Parks) The part were not allowed to have drilled into us is the more germane part of the story in terms of how her action that day translated into change. It was not an incident that got so much press that it galvanized people around the issue. She was a trained civil disobedience activist from within a major civil rights organization that had pre-planned the bus boycott. How and why to build organizations with transformational power is not taught to our kids in grade school -- even though that was the real activity that allows them to be learning in integrated schools in the first place. They may be taught only about individual heroics -- which is a myth, and doesnt work, which is why it is taught. Sorry this link doesnt load a nice graphic and summary paragraph. Much of the best reading does not. Turst me, you want to click on it and read. Its only a few pages, and has pictures.
Posted on: Tue, 03 Dec 2013 17:03:27 +0000
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