THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, September 3, 1994 TAG: 9409030440
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Marc Tibbs
LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
No matter how old she gets, Rosa Parks continues to inspire.
In 1955 in Montgomery, Ala., she inspired an entire nation to take a stand for justice when she refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a city bus.
Now, as the victim of a break-in and robbery at her Detroit home this week, maybe she'll inspire us to take a more active role in fighting the parasites that feed on our communities.
Joseph N. Skipper, 28, who wasn't even alive at the start of Mrs. Parks' heroics, is accused of forcing his way into her home, beating her and stealing $53 in cash.
A few days later, two men who recognized Skipper from a police composite sketch (developed with the aid of Mrs. Parks), pounced on the alleged crack addict and held him until police arrived.
``I hate for anything like this to happen to anyone,'' Mrs. Parks, 81, said after the attack. ``I'll cooperate, do anything I can.''
Courage like this has always been her most admirable trait. Few of us realize just how much courage she has.
A department store seamstress in 1955, Rosa Parks was notorious for thumbing her nose at Jim Crow. Ten years earlier, she had been thrown from a bus after she'd paid her fare then refused to get off the bus and enter at the rear, as was the custom for black riders.
That cold December day in 1955, she took a seat in the ``colored'' section of the bus. Later, the driver asked her and three other black passengers to move. Only one white passenger needed a seat, but Montgomery law made it illegal for blacks to even sit parallel to whites on a city bus.
Even under Jim Crow, Mrs. Parks was well within her rights when she refused to give up her seat. Montgomery law required blacks to relinquish seats in the ``colored'' section only when there was another seat to move to.
Mrs. Parks knew the law. She had been a secretary for the Montgomery branch of the NAACP, and her arrest was just the test case that the organization had been looking for. The ensuing bus boycott is viewed by many as the beginning of the civil rights movement.
It also was a critical time. The Supreme Court had just decided Brown v. Board of Education the year before. The same year as the boycott, Emmet Till had been lynched in Money, Miss., his body bludgeoned and thrown into the Tallahatchie River.
Blacks like Rosa Parks had reached the point of critical mass.
``I had felt for a long time, that if I was ever told to get up so a white person could sit, that I would refuse to do so,'' Parks said then.
``I was hoping to make a contribution to the fulfillment of complete freedom for all people.''
In recent days, a bruised and bloodied Rosa Parks is still fighting and still inspiring.
Fighting for the right to live in peace in her own home, in her own neighborhood, free from the threat of predators.
And still today, her courage should inspire us to take a stand. To take back our communities and make them safe for our children and the elderly. It's our birthright.
More cops won't do it. More prisons won't do it. The kind of courage Rosa Parks displays is all that will save us.
And all of her life, Mrs. Parks has exemplified that ordinary people can do extraordinary things. by CNB