My aunt e-mailed to tell me that Rosa Parks died yesterday at 92. She said that she remembered that I did a project on her life and times when I was younger. If my presentation on Rosa Parks (there were several, in fact, one in which I dressed up to play her role) made an impact on my aunt, who lived on the other coast when I was in elementary school, it was only because Rosa Parks left such an impression on me.
She was 42 on the day that she sat on her bus and politely gave the driver permission to call the police and have her arrested because, on that day, she would not give up her seat. She was charged with disorderly conduct because she sat quietly, primly, and said, “you may do that,” rather than stand up and herd to the back of a bus with the others who were asked to move. She said, “I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old…no, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.” Tired enough to wake up and say something, do something. To stand up for the first time, by sitting down.
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