Civil rights icon Rosa Parks dies at 92 - Oct 25, 2005: "She took a seat in the front of the black section of a city bus in Montgomery. The bus filled up and the bus driver demanded that she move so a white male passenger could have her seat.'The driver wanted us to stand up, the four of us. We didn't move at the beginning, but he says, 'Let me have these seats.' And the other three people moved, but I didn't,' she once said. When Parks refused to give up her seat, a police officer arrested her. As the officer took her away, she recalled that she asked, 'Why do you push us around? 'The officer's response: 'I don't know, but the law's the law, and you're under arrest.'"
Rosa Parks, we owe you a great debt. In the face of insitutional injustice, you held your ground. The result, while slow coming and painful, was that our collective ignorance was made painfully obvious. While everything did not get better over night for African Americans - and we still have a ways to go - things began to change in the spirit on the day you held your ground.
Heaven knows the world is still full of injustice. Today, heaven wonders if our nation has any more Rosa Parks'.
Somebody stand up.
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