TRIBUTE TO ROSA PARKS WHO WENT TO JAIL FOR US

Jul 14, 2017 Letters

Dear Editor,
“In life Marcus Garvey was controversial, and in death he continues to impact our nation in small, useful ways — teachable moments. He was no angel; most of our heroes were criminals — outlawed, jailed, hanged.”
Franklin Johnston
“I had not planned to get arrested…to end up in jail. But when I had to face that decision, I didn’t hesitate to do so because I felt that we had endured that too long. The more we gave in, the more we complied with that kind of treatment, the more oppressive it became.”
Rosa Parks
As we observe American Independence, we must pause for a moment and appreciate the monumental efforts of those who made America, although still imperfect, a better place. Our community, I hope, knows about heroes like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the father of the civil rights movement, and an iconic figure globally. But how many even know who Rosa Parks was?
We must not only be proud of our Duck Curry festivals, and material things like huge flat screen TVs, blasting car stereos, mansions and fancy cars. Our outlook must be much broader than that. You must empower yourselves and become citizens, register to vote, exercise that most important franchise of voting, and be active in our communities. Charity begins at home. As Harriet Tubman once said, “Every great dream begins with a dreamer.”
Take inspiration from people like Rosa Parks, a humble woman, who stands supreme as the mother of the civil rights movement, and on whose shoulders you now stand and flourish. Immigrant and minority communities like ours should always sing the praises of these righteous heroes who changed America, for most of us would not have migrated to Jim Crow America as it existed before they made their groundbreaking changes.
People of color could not marry a white person, use the same rest rooms, eat in the same restaurants, play together, attend the same schools, be hospitalized in the same institution, nor sit in the same buses and trains with white folks like we do now. Primitive and inhumane, but that was what America was before heroes like Dr. King Jr., Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey and others changed it. As we stand on their shoulders, let us not forget the legacy they left us, and build on the gains they bequeathed to all who come to the “Home of the Free, and the Land of the Brave” for a better life.
In South Africa, Nelson Mandela vanquished the evils of apartheid with statesmanlike courage. In India, Mahatma Gandhi’s liberating victories against Britain and improving the lives of untouchables, or lower caste people is a beacon to the world. Similarly, in America, we owe heroes like Rosa Parks. Robert Kennedy once said, “Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of these acts will be written the history of this generation.” Rosa bent history itself, and forced America to become a better nation.
One of the most important lives to ever walk the earth, Mrs. Parks was a seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama when, in December of 1955, she refused to give up her seat on a city bus to a white passenger. She was not tired physically, but tired of seeing so many men treated as boys and not called by their proper names or titles. She was tired of seeing children and women mistreated and disrespected because of the color of their skin. She was tired of Jim Crow laws, of legally enforced racial segregation.The bus driver had her arrested. She was tried and convicted of violating a local ordinance. She went to jail for all of us, and for your generations to come.
Her act sparked a citywide boycott of the bus system by blacks that lasted more than a year, crystalizing into a movement that catapulted Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to national martyrdom, and resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court’s historic decision outlawing segregation on city buses. Over the next four decades, Rosa Parks helped make her fellow Americans aware of the history of the civil rights struggle. As a pioneer in the struggle for racial equality, she was the recipient of innumerable honors, including the Martin Luther King Jr. Nonviolent Peace Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Her example remains an inspiration to freedom-loving people everywhere. Uplifting humanity was her oyster. Thank you, Rosa Parks, for the legacy you gave us.
Albert Baldeo

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TRIBUTE TO ROSA PARKS WHO WENT TO JAIL FOR US

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