So, Rosa Parks is Dead

I'm sure OutKast now wishes they had just waited a few more months instead of settling Parks' lawsuit against them back in April. They say hindsight is 20/20, but come on people! She was old, surely the logic of her imminent death should have inspired some reigns to be applied to the desire to settle on a grotesque attempt to violate the First Amendment. Patience, people, we must learn patience.

Such poor attempts at humour (that's right, English spelling, what?) aside, it's an amazing thing that today marks the passing of the second most visible icon of America's Civil Rights struggle. The only conception I have of Martin Luther King, Jr. comes from speeches, photographs, and news reels from the sixties. A powerful, yet very static figure who emerges and comes to life from a past that is truly history to me, unlike many others who lived through those decades. Rosa Parks is one of the few people from that time period and celebrated by the media who survived well into my life. In a decade of cognizance where there are very few Mandelas and Theresas, the presence of Rosa Parks was a startling and all important one.

In a way, the significance of Rosa Parks exists simply because she became that media darling for the Civil Rights movement. So? The reason of her significance is the same reason for anyone's or anything's rise to popularity and importance. If the media didn't take up a story, it never gets heard by the masses and never means anything to the people. Because Ms. Parks was embraced by the NAACP and the national media meant that everyone who came before her now had a voice and the people who usually wouldn't hear that voice had no choice but to listen. Thus Rosa Parks became the symbol for not only the movement but also for the other men and women who refused to give up their seats on public transportation, and that is a great thing to celebrate. That she is the symbol does not and can never take away from the acts of other individuals. It is a sad note on our society and our prediliction to be so damnably fickle when it comes to history that we remember no one else who refused to bow to inhuman demands. I did a few minutes of research on Ms. Parks this morning (hail to Wikipedia!) and I was very surprised to see that Jackie Robinson likewise refused to give up his seat -- suprising because it's Jackie Robinson, man, freakin' Jackie Robinson!

Rosa Parks demands equal attention and heralding for her brave statement and actions as all those who preceded her. Yet since the movement and America defined her as a symbol of resistance and dignity, we give her due praise. I will gladly do as most Americans shall this day (or, if we're honest, as too few shall) and give thought and wonder to such courage. I, however, will also apologize for not knowing the names of the people Ms. Parks represented and will, if but for a day, remember and study their actions: Irene Morgan, an unnamed 15 year old girl, Jackie Robinson, Claudette Colvin, Mary Louise Smith.