Day -494- My daily Thoughts Haibun Journey — Rosa Parks

Happy birthday Ms. Rosa Parks, the face of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Contrary to what we were taught in elementary school about her being a tired woman with aching feet that day in 1945, forty-two-year-old Rosa Parks refusal to get up had more to do with being fed-up with unfair Jim Crow Laws. Her activism in the black community predates that day.

Once in a confrontation with the same bus driver she refused to get off the bus after paying and go around and get on through the backdoor. In this instance she ended up not riding rather than give in.

In 1943 she joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). She worked specifically on criminal justice and its application in Alabama communities. Rosa Parks was an investigator for sexual assault crimes like in the case of Recy Taylor.

Elvert Barnes from USA, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Here is an ABC news clip of Mrs. Parks. It shows what a quiet mannered humble person she was. https://abcn.ws/3jiwwvA

unbroken spirit
held together with tenacity
for justice