Rosa Parks was arrested on December 1, 1955 for refusing to give up her seat on the bus for a white man, at the command of the bus driver.
This humble refusal to submit to the (stupid) law of the city of Montgomery AL sparked a year-long boycott of the bus system and is often considered one of a few ignition points for the Civil Rights movement in the USA. I wasn’t alive then, but am reminded of her large role in the US conscience. Fortunately, her conviction for contravening the Montgomery Alabama’s public transportation segregation ordnance was vacated when the law was struck down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional.
I remember visiting Grand Rapids MI for a parish musician convention when I came across the Rosa Parks Circle, a small plaza near the DeVos Convention Center. This morning I read the news picks of the Yahoo News Digest app, which had last been updated last night (Dec 1). It’s a cool little app that twice a day gives me 8 top news picks with a neat little animation once they’ve all been read. There’s an ‘Easter Egg’ at that point which often includes a special quote or reminder of something important that had happened that day. Rosa’s arrest 61 years ago hit the Easter Egg on Dec 1.
