She Sat to Conquer...

A Rose by Any Other Name.....

As the Civil Rights Movement in America was gathering pace in the late 1950’s, I was a fifteen year old teenager back home in Ireland.    Strangely enough I paid scant attention to what was going on in the United States but was aware of the Movement and especially Dr. Martin Luther King.    I read newspaper reports and watched television of the events of the time but really I was not that concerned.   After all, it was a long way away in those days..............

That was until a fateful date in December, 1955 when I read about events in Montgomery Alabama.    The facts shocked and amazed me.    How could a woman be arrested at gunpoint over a simple act of defiance concerning a seat on a bus?  

The lady in question became my first true American heroine......................

She was of course Rosa Parks and the incident I mention above was as a result of her arrest for not giving up her seat to a white man on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama on 1^st December 1955.   She was aged 42 years.

The ‘system’ on Montgomery buses at the time was that the seats in the front half of the bus were for white people only and the back half for black people.   As the bus filled and there were no ‘white only’ seats available and a white passenger got onto the bus, the entire next row of black people had to vacate their seats and stand.

This was seen as an opportunity to raise the profile of the Civil Rights Movement and to gain national and international support.

On Thursday, 1^st December 1955, Rosa was sitting in the front row of the black peoples’ half of the bus.   A white man entered the bus but all the ‘white’ seats were taken.   The bus driver, James F. Blake told all the black people in the first row of the black half of the bus to vacate their seats.    Rosa refused.   Police were called and she was arrested.

She was found guilty on 15^th December and fined ten dollars with four dollars costs.   She appealed and a long process against the discrimination began.

Rosa was not the first black woman to be arrested for failing to give up her seat but she was what was considered to be the most suitable.   She was of excellent character and had just completed a course in ‘Race Relations’ in Tennessee where nonviolent civil-disobedience had been discussed.

Upon her arrest, a boycott of all Montgomery buses by the black population was called for and it was almost 100% successful.    Black people walked, cycled, hitch-hiked, car-shared, took cheap taxi rides and in some cases they were collected from home by their white employers and returned after work.

The bus company began to lose money rapidly as more than half of their regular customers were black people.    Court Appeals for and against continued for almost a year until on 13^th November 1956 the Supreme Court found in favour of Rosa and held that Alabama’s Segregation Laws were unconstitutional.

The boycott of the buses lasted 381 days and officially ended on 20^th December 1956.

As I said, I was a teenager of fifteen at the time and can well remember reading and following the case.   I was overwhelmed at the heroism of Miss Parks taking on what I considered in my naivety at the time, the Government.    She was my first true American heroine and remains so to this day.

Rosa died peacefully on 24^th October 2005 aged 92.    God Rest Her Soul...........

-------------Mike----------------