“The Very Fact That You are Alive Means
That You Have Something Unique to Contribute to the World.”
Rosa Parks
***
Around 6 pm on Thursday, December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (2/4/1913–10/24/ 2005) boarded a city bus, paid her fare and sat in an empty seat in the first row of back seats reserved for blacks in the “colored section.”
Soon, all of the “white-only” seats in the bus filled. The bus driver moved the “colored section” sign to behind Parks and demanded that four black people give up their seats in the middle section so that white passengers could sit. Although technically she had not taken a white-only seat and had been in the colored section, when Parks refused to move, a police officer arrested her. Her arrest touched off the 361-day Montgomery bus boycott. On November 13, 1956, the US Supreme Court ruled that bus segregation was unconstitutional, and the city of Montgomery repealed its law.
***
In her own words, Rosa Parks was a woman of faith.
“Every day before supper and before we went to services on Sundays,
my grandmother would read the Bible to me,
and my grandfather would pray.
We even had devotions before going to pick cotton in the fields.
Prayer and the Bible became a part of my everyday thoughts and beliefs.
I learned to put my trust in God and to seek Him as my strength.”
***
“People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired,
but that isn’t 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.“
***
“I instantly felt God give me the strength to endure whatever would happen next.
God’s peace flooded my soul, and my fear melted away.
All people were equal in the eyes of God,
and I was going to live like a free person.”
***
“Since I have always been a strong believer in God,
I knew that He was with me,
and only He could get me through that next step.“
***
“In the end, God used a simple bus ride to accomplish
more than we could have ever dreamed.”
***
“I had no idea that history was being made.
I was just tired of giving up.“