50/100 WORDS
Remembering Rosa Parks
Thrifty Word Challenge 100 #46: & 50 #67: Civil Disobedience
It’s funny to think that one of my current favourite belongings is a Barbie doll – but then, it is a Rosa Parks doll.
She sits on a shelf by my window opposite my bed and is one of the first things I see when I open my eyes in the morning. Yes, she’s a doll, but she’s part of Barbie’s Inspiring Women series so I don’t consider her trite.
Although I am not an American, Rosa Parks has inspired me since I found out about her as a teenager. I was in awe of her courage; although as I came to understand what Black Americans were up against in those days, I realized she didn’t really have a choice. Among the many cruelties levelled by the Montgomery Bus Company drivers against their best customers — the company were nearly bankrupted by the boycott sparked by Rosa’s arrest — was to force African Americans to pay their fare to the driver, then walk to the back of the bus to get on board, only to drive off before they could. As Martin Luther King Jnr later wrote, “Actually, no one can understand the action of Mrs. Parks unless he realizes that…
