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Rosa Parks During the Booking Process After her Arrest in 1955

Of course the big news this morning was the passing last night of civil rights legend Rosa Parks at the age of 92.

All of us are appropriately noting the importance of Rosa Parks’ actions in 1955. Segregation in this country is indeed what Secretary Rice refers to as one of our “birth defects.” Fortunately for us, we had doctors like Parks to help has make a difference for everyone.

That said, I am quite surprised by how little people actually know of Ms. Parks involvement with the NAACP and her civil rights activism history prior to the bus boycott. I realize Americans prefer romantic heroes, those who in the moment are swept away and, regardless of the personal consequences, decide to take action for the betterment of everyone.

While Ms. Parks’ actions are obviously worthy of the lauding they’re now receiving, it’s important to recognize that she was as much a “tired seamstress just wanting to go home,” as Betty Friedan was a “tired housewife.” Ms. Parks was, in fact, an officer with the Montgomery NAACP, and integrally involved with the planning and strategy of the bus boycott. She ultimately became the test case when NAACP officials realized that they weren’t going to get the sort of bus rider they needed to win the sympathy of the nation, so Parks was chosen to start the challenge.

There was an importance early on with casting her as the Everywoman who simply had had enough. Getting the sympathy and support of the average American was key when it came to changing segregation laws. I believe it would have been more difficult to rally people around the deliberate arrest of an NAACP activist compared to the happenstance arrest of an average citizen.

So, the romantic presentation of Ms. Parks as a “tired seamstress” was born. Was she sometimes tired and a seamstress? Yes she was, but when she refused to give up that seat on the bus she was a civil rights activist and officer with the Montgomery NAACP.

Interestingly, the Washington Post in their coverage at first presents the romantic version, but then confirms her activism at various points in their coverage. Here’s how they do it. They don’t ignore her position as an activist at the time, but they also still present her actions as simply serendipitous:

Nearly 50 years ago, Rosa Parks made a simple decision that sparked a revolution. When a white man demanded she give up her seat on a Montgomery, Ala., bus, the then 42-year-old seamstress said no…

Mrs. Parks, an active member of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, [not just an active member, but an officer-ed.] was riding on a city bus Dec. 1, 1955, when a white man demanded her seat.

She refused, despite rules requiring blacks to yield their seats to whites. Two black Montgomery women had been arrested earlier that year on the same charge, but Mrs. Parks was jailed. She also was fined $14…

She was born Rosa Louise McCauley on Feb. 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Ala. Family illness interrupted her high school education, but after she married Raymond Parks in 1932, he encouraged her and she earned a diploma in 1934. He also inspired her to become involved in the NAACP.

And that involvement was intense. None of this, of course, is a secret. A source as widely available as the MSN Encarta encyclopedia has this segment about Parks’ early commitment to social activism:

Parks’s husband had long been active in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), an organization founded to improve the conditions for blacks in the United States. Parks became increasingly committed to racial justice as she and her husband joined the campaign to save the “Scottsboro boys”—nine young black men who were accused of raping two white teenagers near Scottsboro, Alabama, in 1931.

And for those of you who still question that her ride on the bus was simply “to go home,” consider this: Six months prior to her arrest she traveled to Tennessee to attend the Highlander Folk School, an education center for workers’ rights and racial equality.

There are actually two young women whose commitment to civil rights, who were not officers or employees of the NAACP, has gone somewhat uncelebrated. The first to personally challenge bus segregation earlier in 1955 had been 15-year-old Claudette Colvin, followed by another teenager named Mary Louise Smith. The NAACP officers, however, didn’t feel either girl cut the right kind of figure to carry through what was anticipated to be a drawn out court battle.

It was December 1955, six weeks after the NAACP’s rejection of the teenagers (meetings of which Ms. Parks attended), Ms. Parks herself was arrested for refusing to give up her seat.

Frankly, I have come under some fire for reminding people of Ms. Parks’ actual history; there is a sense that this somehow undermines or negates the importance of the Montgomery bus boycott. Actually, I feel ignoring the truth about Ms. Parks personal commitment to civil rights and how societies truly change, is the insult.

As a former leftist organizer, I know the importance of personal action and organizing to make a difference and admire Ms. Parks as the consummate civil rights activist. To continue the falsehood that she was a victim of circumstance, responding in the moment to her environment, a woman who had no plan that day, suggests that we all must wait for some passive event in our lives only to see if we have the courage in the moment to do something.

The actual history of Rosa Parks is a reminder of what an individual can accomplish. That big things happen by those who plan; the lesson is that we can and should as individuals make commitments and set out to make a difference.

There were a whole host of reasons in 1955 to present Rosa Parks as the Everywoman caught up in a storm-filled environment. We are now a generation that can handle the truth about the situation as a whole and Rosa Parks in particular. For today’s girls and women the real Rosa Parks sends a message that we can take things into our own hands. And it’s also an important political reminder that nothing, nothing, political happens out of the blue.