Rosa Parks: Symbols, myths and movements
If you've read the eulogies to Rosa Parks today, you've probably read the same story I have about the event that made her a civil rights legend: on December 1, 1955, a tired seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama gets on a bus, sits down, is told to stand up for a white passenger, refuses, gets arrested, and the freedom movement is born.
This focus on the defiant acts of one individual quickly became a symbol of the entire civil rights struggle -- a myth especially liked by the media, with their interest in creating celebrities and telling personal stories, as opposed to the stories of broad movements for change.
Of course, the reality is much more complicated and interesting. There's a whole alternative story about Rosa Parks, which you can see in jre's post today at DKos, as well as our recent post here. Another well-known take is that of journalist Paul Loeb, in his much-forwarded piece "The Real Rosa Parks." Here's a key passage:
At the same time, I think it's also true that all movements have their symbols, whether it's Rosa Parks 50 years ago, or Cindy Sheehan in the peace movement today. These figures have helped draw badly-needed attention to previously ignored causes and struggles. They've also helped personalize and humanize issues that can often drift into muddy abstractions.
So on this day of Rosa Parks' passing, let's honor her actions on December 1, 1955, as a true movement hero. At the same time, we'll remember her longer-term battle, and the broader movement of which she was a part, which included thousands of risk-taking people in the trenches who helped -- in the words of another leader Parks helped elevate to national prominence, Martin Luther King, Jr. -- bend the arc of the universe towards justice.
Here are short statements from two of my favorite freedom movement historians, Charles Payne and John Hope Franklin, both here in North Carolina.
This focus on the defiant acts of one individual quickly became a symbol of the entire civil rights struggle -- a myth especially liked by the media, with their interest in creating celebrities and telling personal stories, as opposed to the stories of broad movements for change.
Of course, the reality is much more complicated and interesting. There's a whole alternative story about Rosa Parks, which you can see in jre's post today at DKos, as well as our recent post here. Another well-known take is that of journalist Paul Loeb, in his much-forwarded piece "The Real Rosa Parks." Here's a key passage:
[The familiar rendition of Parks' story strips] the Montgomery, Ala., boycott of its most important context. Before refusing to give up her bus seat, Parks had spent 12 years helping lead the local NAACP chapter. The summer before, Parks had attended a 10-day training session at Tennessee's labor and civil rights organizing school, the Highlander Center, where she'd met an older generation of civil rights activists and discussed the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision banning "separate but equal" schools.I couldn't agree more. Our history books and media caricatures don't tell us enough about the daily, grinding work of grassroots organizing and movement-building that went into pivotal events like the Montgomery Bus Boycott -- both on the part of Rosa Parks and countless unsung heroes that make up such society-changing struggles.
In other words, Parks didn't come out of nowhere. She didn't single-handedly give birth to the civil rights efforts. Instead, she was part of an existing movement for change at a time when success was far from certain. This in no way diminishes the power and historical importance of her refusal to give up her seat. But it does remind us that this tremendously consequential act might never have taken place without the humble and frustrating work that she and others did earlier on. It reminds us that her initial step of getting involved was just as courageous and critical as the fabled moment when she refused to move to the back of the bus.
At the same time, I think it's also true that all movements have their symbols, whether it's Rosa Parks 50 years ago, or Cindy Sheehan in the peace movement today. These figures have helped draw badly-needed attention to previously ignored causes and struggles. They've also helped personalize and humanize issues that can often drift into muddy abstractions.
So on this day of Rosa Parks' passing, let's honor her actions on December 1, 1955, as a true movement hero. At the same time, we'll remember her longer-term battle, and the broader movement of which she was a part, which included thousands of risk-taking people in the trenches who helped -- in the words of another leader Parks helped elevate to national prominence, Martin Luther King, Jr. -- bend the arc of the universe towards justice.
Here are short statements from two of my favorite freedom movement historians, Charles Payne and John Hope Franklin, both here in North Carolina.
28 Comments:
Great post. This part:
They've also helped personalize and humanize issues that can often drift into muddy abstractions.
Reminded me of this quote from the NOLA TP reporter article:
[A rookie reporter] instinctively realized what it takes some reporters years to understand and most never will. When the story gets too big to cover, in this case too enormous to even comprehend, you have to focus on the small story: one person, one family, one day, whatever, that personifies the larger whole. You fire the rifle, not the shotgun.
Maybe some interesting lessons here to be learned (or re-learned) by progressives...
In some ways, Rosa Parks herself helped feed that mythologizing, with her self-effacing manner. When asked about what she was doing, she said,
"It was not pre-arranged. It just happened that the driver made a demand and I just didn't feel like obeying his demand . . . I was quite tired after spending a full day working."
But I do agree -- there was something pleasing to the press in perpetuating that particular myth. And in some ways, it may be fortunate. I suspect that if the Montgomery Bus Boycott were to have happened during the current day (with its Hannity types and its Coulter types) that Parks would have been characterized as an uppity communist trying her level-best to destroy society with her wanton ways.
My sincerest wish, in observing her passing, is that we make strides to realize today that the divisions in our society are only as real as we choose to believe that they are.
Godspeed, Sister.
Rosa Parks was a great woman who worked and sacrificed for equality. To compare her with Cindy Sheehan is an insult to her memory.
Wasn't Rosa Parks a stand in for a REAL woman who did spontaneously refuse to give up her seat?
The problem was the real heroine was an unwed mother and not of the proper "class".
Cindy Sheehan and Rosa Parks? I don't think so...
To compare Rosa Parks, a woman who had the courage to act on her convictions with dopey-ass Cindy Sheehan, a megalomaniacal publicity-hound capitalizing on the death of her son, is absurd. This comparison also illustrates what's wrong with the Left (apart from your adherence to an illogical and discredited political/economic philosophy): your hatred of America is so great that you can no longer distinguish charlatans from heroes as long as you believe that they further your cause.
It's pretty rich to see right-wingers come in and try to claim Rosa Parks for their own. NAACP leader, trained at the radical Highlander Folk School in Tennessee, worked closely with labor organizer E.D. Nixon in Alabama and with radicals in the Scottboro frame-up case, later worked for progressive Rep. John Conyers ... sorry, folks, but she's was clearly and unapologetically on the Left. In fact, she was vilified by the conservative establishment much like Sheehan is today for those very leftist positions. Nice try.
Cindy Ain't Rosa Parks.
The people who put in the Jim Crow laws were the Democrats. The people who helped overturn the Jim Crow laws were Democrats, Republicans, independents, Jews, and firearms owners. Yes, Firearm owners. The freedom riders were being attacked, and they announced that they would be armed.
It is odd that when you are against government oppression, some people claim that you are politically akin to the most oppressive governments that the world have yet seen, the National Socialists and the International Socialists.
Freedom of the individual is radical. Its home is the US.
You said this:
At the same time, I think it's also true that all movements have their symbols, whether it's Rosa Parks 50 years ago, or Cindy Sheehan in the peace movement today
Are you serious? Mrs. Sheehan is no Rosa Parks, and is a laughing stock. The only thing they have in common is that they staged their incidents. The difference is Sheehan staged her to benefit her, while Parks act of defiance benefitted every American who lived from 1955 to today, and will for many years beyond her life. Sheehan is nothing more than a punchline.
Cindy Sheehan is a great American, a hero of the first order. And I am a dumb ass of the first order for saying that.
Read proverbs 31:26,,,,,do you get it now??????
From beneath his wings
"CHOSEN"
Detroit,Mi
Rosa Parks may have been a gentlewoman of the left, but she also asked JC Watts not to retire:
"'If you can, please remain as a pioneer on the Republican side until others come to assist you,' she writes."
(Sorry the link to the original is broken. I got the quote second-hand from Esmay.)
A wise woman, seeing that enlisting both sides of the aisle is a better idea than just one.
Oh, and nice try on dragging Cindy Sheehan in. A bridge too far, I think, tho.
Problem is Cindy is not progressive: she is a reactionary regressive - whatever you want to call someone who disparages the struggle of freedom. But let's elect Cindy president and make sure she never makes a decision that makes an American mother cry. Is that what the peace movement wants? The left cannot acknowledge that there exists an enemy that would gleefully destory us all. At some point - which means deads innocent citizens or dead fighting soldiers - we will have to face the question: what are we going to do to stop this? Cindy Sheehan offers no answer.
I'm sure the current administration is happy to see all the wingnuts in here talking about the "struggle for freedom" -- because staying free of a jail cell is gonna be a real struggle for those crooks in a few days! Bring on the indictments!
I think if the Democrats want a symbol it is best to avoid communists.
The Republicans have been in the lead on Civil Rights since Lincoln.
More Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act than Democrats.
In fact the Dems still have a "former" KKK leader as one of their main lights. Byrd.
The Rs slapped down Lott for his apparent racial insensitivity. So where are they on Byrd?
M. Simon -- Do these names ring any bells?
Jesse Helms
Strom Thurmond
Haley Barbour
Trent Lott
GOP all. Civil rights champions?
I'm trying to stop laughing long enough to keep typing.
Das sez: The left cannot acknowledge that there exists an enemy that would gleefully destory us all. At some point - which means deads innocent citizens or dead fighting soldiers - we will have to face the question: what are we going to do to stop this?
No, there are people on both the left and the right (but apparently more on the left who still have functioning brains capable of objective thought) that THIS war in IRAQ is wrong and was sold to the American people on a back of lies. But now that you mention it, what ARE your guys doing to "stop this"? Where is Osama? Why is the Taliban back in power and the heroin flowing in Afghanistan again? Anyway, that commie pinko FDR did a pretty good job protecting America and saving the world on his watch.
But we were talking about Rosa Parks, right?
Do these names ring any bells?
Jesse Helms
Strom Thurmond
Haley Barbour
Trent Lott
GOP all. Civil rights champions?
I cannot speak for the last two, as I do not know their past, but both Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond were stalwarts of the Democratic Party when they were overt, racist obstructionists, right up there with their buddy Robert Byrd. Helms & Thurmond broke from the Dems to form the "Dixiecrats," and later moved to the Republicans.
I must add that years later they were considered extrodinarily forward thinking progressives when it came to race matters, just like George Wallace in Alabama, Lester Maddox in Georgia and Byrd in West Virginia. I personally think it was "fingers in the wind" politics as usual for all of them, as I am by no means a fan of any of them, then or now.
When you stop to think about it, planning the event as Rosa Parks did is more an act of courage than a spotaneous one - imagine getting on that bus fully aware of what was about to happen, and what could happen (night riders/firebombing/lynchings were by no means an unusual even in those relatively late days).
I lived through that time, was a stalwart Kennedy-Democrat myself afterwards (I worked on both Carter's 76 and Gary Hart's 84 campaigns), until it became undeniably clear that it had become the party of eternal victimization (Cynthia McKinney/Maxine Waters/Jesse Jackson/Al Sharpton, extreme hate politics (Waters & McKinney again/Harry Reid/"Lying Joe" Biden/Barabara Boxer/Nancy Pelosi/Ted Kennedy) and outright socialism (Hillary Clinton/Al Gore/Kennedy. I'm not a fan of the Republicans, either, but I will say in their favor that they at least put their slef-interests in the table for all to see (big business without any or little government oversight, primarily).
I really do long for statesmen in this nation, politicians that put the good of the people and the country ahead of winning their next election, or making as many news headlines as humanly possible.
Anybody that feels this is a great post must be a moron. While Rosa Parks should be commended for her stance, Cindy Sheehan is a joke. Anybody that would make that analogy is an imbecile and should be summarily scorned.
Cindy Sheehan would squat and pee on her son's grave if she thought it would bring her fifteen more minutes of "fame."
Trying to get back on topic here:
Personally, I have no problem encompassing the myth and the back-story. Yes, the civil-rights movement had been trying to gather strength and direction for many years; the NAACP, if I'm not mistaken, dates back to the turn of the 20th century or thereabouts. And I'm delighted that Rosa Parks was a force to be reckoned with in the NAACP, long before that fateful day in 1955.
But sometimes a movement needs a symbol to gather around. From what I understand, Mrs. Parks didn't choose to get up one morning and make a statement. Her action (or, rather, inaction) was not premeditated. She'd had enough, and was not willing to budge, just so that someone could sit while she stood.
You need a spark to start the fire. Somebody had to be first -- and being the first can be an awful, scary thing.
Rosa Parks was a brave woman. She knew perfectly well that she faced arrest -- or worse -- for her action (as Cindy Sheehan did not, by the way), but she did it anyway. Mrs. Parks' years in the NAACP prior to 1955 do not detract from her courage in the least.
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline
Thanks Daniel -- that was exactly the point I was trying to make. As Charlie Cobb, a veteran of the Mississippi freedom movement says in a more recent post on the blog, the tinder was ready, and Rosa was the spark.
I find it amusing that folks remember that it was the Democratic Party that fought civil rights in the South, but forget that the struggle didn't stop with the Civil Rights Act and that virtually all of those bad actors ended up in the GOP.
This was a good post until you had to go and mention Cindy Sheehan.
As a Republican I would love to see Condi Rice run for Pres or Vice Pres in 2008. Would that finally put the nail in the coffin of left wing accusations of right-wing racial and sexual bias?
Probably not. The left is not often bothered by reality. They just ignore it.
Fair enough till the mention of that nitwit, Sheehan.
R. Neal,
You believe the people who disagree with you are incapable of analytical thought? They eagerly buy pack of lies dealt out by Bush & Co.? Well I suppose thinking all your opponents gullible purchasers of lies (stupid, in other words) is one way of not having to argue your case. American blood is being spilt and you accuse your countrymen (the ones who disagree with you) of holding a pack of lies in higher esteem than the blood of its sons and daughters? Don't compliment yourself, Bub. Nobody is walking into this thing with his eyes closed. If THIS war is the wrong war for you then make a case for it - don't just call us stupid.
God Bless Rosa.
Das, I and many others made our case leading up to this illegal and unjust war. Bush and Cheney and Powell made theirs. Obviously they are more powerful. And obviously folks like you chose which Kool-aid to drink. History will prove who was right. And it's already starting. Which I think is the root of your issue. People generally hate to have to admit they were wrong.
r. neal,
Your pseudo-defense of the "progressive" crowd only shows how impotent you and the loony left have become. The U.N. has been shown to be inept at best, criminals more likely - you're part of the fan club.
If eighteen U.N. resolutions can be flaunted by a tyrant without punishment as you seem to wish, and if the freedom of 50MM people who have never known it isn't important, it has only proven how irrelevant you and your crowd have become. Did I add anti-military and hypocritical as well?
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