More on Rosa Parks, and beyond

Thanks to Steph's link in her blog, I got some extra information from Soul of a Citizen by Utne Reader regarding Rosa Parks as the “mother of the civil rights movement”. This information corrected some of my misconceptions of Rosa Parks and the civil rights movement, while in the same time confirmed others.

Steph's Blog:

http://www.stephaniejokent.com/blog/archives/001795.html

Soul's of a Citizen: http://www.soulofacitizen.org/articles/Utne%20Reader%20Excerpt.htm

I never feel ashamed of being a believer of the "conspiracy theory", and the civil rights movement in America, I believe, has been diminished to the state of a tamed animal who was once wild. The creation of individual heroes and their separation from the ordinary people they belong to, has not only contributed to the illusion that racism is something in the past yet exists no more, but literally made it difficult for people in the streets to conceive social change as possible. To quote Utne Reader, "enshrining our heroes makes it hard for mere mortals to measure up. Because we can't imagine that an ordinary human being might make a critical difference in a worthy social cause…."

That is to say, the constructed distinction between "heroes" and us was meant, consciously or otherwise, to make us believe that to do something we need to be "the kind of person who gets involved", that the ability to make a difference relies upon certain inherent and immutable personal characteristics. The construction of such belief, though not rare in human history, has not been free from deliberate effort from the white male mainstream (including but not limited to: the federal and local government, the right wing foundations since the 1960's, and the broadcasting media) in the case of the American civil rights movement, which can be seen clearly in the deal in such holiday as Martin Luther King Day.

Here is a lengthy quote from The Soul of a Citizen: change happens – slowly

A few years ago, on Martin Luther King Day, I was interviewed on CNN along with Rosa Parks. "Rosa Parks was the woman who wouldn't go to the back of the bus," said the host. "That set in motion the yearlong bus boycott in Montgomery . It earned Rosa Parks the title of 'mother of the civil rights movement."

The host's descriptionññthe standard rendition of the storyññstripped the boycott of its context. Before refusing to give up her bus seat to a white person, Parks had spent 12 years helping to lead the local NAACP chapter. The summer before, she had attended a 10-day training session at the Highlander Center, Tennessee's labor and civil rights organizing school, where she'd met older activists and discussed the Supreme Court decision banning "separate but equal" schools. Parks had become familiar with previous challenges to segregation: another Montgomery bus boycott, 50 years earlier; a bus boycott in Baton Rouge two years before Parks was arrested; and an NAACP dilemma the previous spring, when a young Montgomery woman had also refused to move to the back of the bus. The NAACP had considered a legal challenge but decided the unmarried, pregnant woman would be a poor symbol for a campaign.

In short, Parks didn't make a spur-of-the-moment decision. She was part of a movement for change at a time when success was far from certain. This in no way diminishes her historical importance, but it reminds us that this powerful act might never have taken place without the humble, frustrating work that preceded it.

We elevate a few people to hero status --especially during times of armed conflict--but most of us know next to nothing of the battles ordinary men and women fought to preserve freedom, expand democracy, and create a more just society. Many have remarked on America 's historical amnesia, but its implications are hard to appreciate without recognizing how much identity dissolves in the absence of memory. We lose the mechanisms that grassroots social movements have used successfully to shift public sentiment and challenge entrenched institutional power. Equally lost are the means by which participants eventually managed to prevail.

Think about how differently one can frame Rosa Parks' historic action. In the prevailing myth, Parks--a holy innocent--acts almost on a whim, in isolation. The lesson seems to be that if any of us suddenly got the urge to do something heroic, that would be great. Of course most of us wait our entire lives for the ideal moment.

The real story is more empowering: It suggests that change is the product of deliberate, incremental action. When we join together to shape a better world, sometimes our struggles will fail or bear only modest fruits. Other times they will trigger miraculous outpourings of courage and heart. We can never know beforehand what the consequences of our actions will be.

From The Soul of a Citizen  by Utne Reader