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Rosa
Parks
4 February 1913 -24 October 2005
A
civilized society distinguishes itself by how fairly it treats its
constituents—mb
Rosa Parks passed away on October 24, 2005. With her death,
humanity has lost a formidable force in social reform, but her
spirit lives on in her work and in those of us who identify with
her capacity to transform one’s existence into an instrument
of positive evolution.
I was about 6 years old when I read about
Rosa Parks in a Dutch newspaper. I was horrified to learn that
there was a country in this world where people were treated with
obvious contempt, for no other reason than the color of their
skin. As a human being who was labeled a ‘black person,’
Rosa Parks had to give up her seat to another human being who
was labeled a ‘white person.’
The notion was so totally
incomprehensible to me, so ludicrous beyond grasp, and so
intensely offensive to my sense of what humanity was until that
day, that I vowed to never, ever go to this country. But less
than 20 years later fate had me inexorably transplanted to the
very same place that I had once denounced as horribly deficient
in its socio-moral constitution. And I became a witness to the
many civil rights violations and injustices committed by the US
then and now.
Rosa Parks was known for starting the Civil
Rights Movement by refusing to surrender her seat to a white man
on a Montgomery, Alabama bus. In this moment of deliberate
transformation, she risked her life and well-being, but
ultimately achieved her goal of ending segregation on public
transportation. Moreover, Rosa Parks appealed to the
US Supreme
Court to abolish all segregationist laws, and won. The Rosa
Parks landmark case, although a sad indictment of this
country’s young and recent history, provides a lasting ray of
hope that positive change was, and maybe still is, possible.
Just because a country considers itself
‘developed,’ does not mean that it in fact is. The US may
pride itself on being democratic and protective, insisting on
being the globe’s policeman, but its focus really is on money.
And money provides the thin veneer that conceals the underlying
decay. But money was also what helped Rosa Parks achieve her
goal. Read more about Rosa Parks in an article written by Junious
Ricardo Stanton
[See Below].
Slightly paraphrased by Stanton to fit
current, egalitarian society, Sir Edmund Burke’s advise that
“All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good people
do nothing” still rings true. Rosa Parks was a person who
proved beyond a doubt that good people can defeat malice. And in
her mission to end the depraved indifference toward the black
community in Alabama, she also transcended the self-imposed
restrictions of human existence. Dr. Abraham Maslow summarizes
his concept of self-actualization as follows: “It refers to a
[man]'s desire for fulfillment, namely to the tendency for [him]
to become actually in what [he] is potentially: to become
everything that one is capable of becoming." From
Maslow’s perspective, Rosa Parks obviously lived a fully
self-actualized life, until the ripe old age of 92. Her spirit
will be remembered, and her beautiful soul will add its glory to
the wonderful mystery of death.
Rosa Parks wrote a book in 1994 called
Quiet Strength in which she describes her courageous
battle against oppression and ‘racism.’
Food for thought
What exactly is ‘racism’? Racism is a
cockamamie word for a hideous concept that in all actuality has
no basis in reality. Any member of a certain ‘race’ that is
capable of producing viable offspring with any other member of
that ‘race,’ belongs to the same race. Therefore, since all
human beings can produce viable offspring with each other, they
all belong to the same ‘race,’ namely the Human Race.
Therefore, it follows that there is no such thing as a ‘black
race’ or a ‘white race’ or a ‘yellow race’ or whatever
other color race. Stop using this ridiculous and misleading noun
that was invented in the days of slavery to isolate a section of
the population with the intent to oppress it.—Marinza Bruineman, NYC Oct. 2005
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| three haiku for rosa parks
By Van G. Garrett
b.
more than tired feet
weary from a long day’s
work
ms. parks stood her ground
u.
in a quiet way
rosa conducted business
that made the world think
s.
a civilized fight
that continues to to progress
started on a bus
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Random
Thoughts on Current Events
By Junious Ricardo Stanton
I find it ironic and symbolic that Queen Mother Rosa
Parks and Coretta Scott King who both were integral
and catalytic players in a freedom struggle that
forced their lives to intertwine as they attempted
to reshape AmeriKKKan society and culture for the
better made their transitions from this physical
realm within months of each other. Their lives and
destinies came together in Montgomery Alabama in
1955 and they continued to make a difference until
the very end. Mrs. Rosa Parks became a venerated
ancestor in October of 2005, Mrs. King made her
transition two days ago.
During the
tumultuous times they struggled to break the
death-grip of state mandated racial caste,
oppression and brutality, they were spied upon,
targeted by local psychopaths and police. State and
federal authorities were leery of them simply
because they dared to challenge the centuries old
entrenched, institutionalized and systemic white
domination, genocide, forced subordination and
oppression of Africans in AmeriKKKa. Mrs. Parks and
King both exemplified uncompromising courage to
withstand virulent and vicious white reactionism
while working to ameliorate conditions for their/our
people.
They passed
within months of each other at a time when the
psychopathic, racist and megalomaniacal mentality
they battled in 1955 resurrected itself and is
growing ever more pervasive in AmeriKKKa! These
stalwart soldiers of human rights are no longer with
us, yet the conditions of oppression, militarism and
racial caste they fought so hard to eradicate,
remain. Mother Parks and Mrs. King have gone on but
we remain. What is the lesson in their loss for us
other than the reality none of us is going to get
out of here alive, we will all make our transition
into the great initiation we call death? What is the
message in this mess? Can we see beyond the veil of
our awe of death and the sadness we may feel to
realize, now is our time? Can we see this as our
opportunity to make our mark on the world and leave
it a better place like Mother Parks and Mrs. King
attempted to do?
Our challenge
remains and is no less then the ones they faced. The
evils of global white supremacy, fascist militarism,
imperial hubris/overreach still threaten the world,
its ecosystems and humanity; what are we going to
do? Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King refused to sit
idly by on the sidelines of life consigned to roles
as passive spectators. They refused to take it any
more. They had the courage of their convictions,
they found the inner strength to oppose concentrated
and virulent evil. Each in her own way got
passionately involved . Each one was committed and
each one willingly paid the price. What are we going
to do? How will we live Ma'at (Divine Order,
Harmony, Equilibrium, Truth, Justice, Righteousness
and Reciprocity) and make it a reality amidst the
chaos, hatred, fear, deceit, malevolence and
selfishness that permeates this culture and
resonates into the world?
Perhaps the
passing of Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King so
close together may be signposts on the road of our
lives and our struggle; reminding each of us it's
time to step up and make a difference in the world,
make a world of difference and make the world
different!
8 February 2006
Source:
assatashakur
posted 28 October 2005
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Quiet Strength: The Faith, the Hope
and the Heart of a Woman Who Changed
a Nation
By Rosa Parks
Parks, one of the U.S.' authentic living
legends, is the black lady who on
December 1, 1955, refused to surrender
her bus seat to a white man, was
arrested under the Jim Crow law that
required blacks to make way for whites,
and thereby launched the yearlong bus
boycott by blacks in Birmingham,
Alabama, which led to the national
overturning of that city's and similar
segregation laws across the nation. In
this tiny collection of what seem like
outtakes from oral-history tapes, she
rehearses her great day (as it seems
from the perspective of history; Parks
remembers it as "not a happy experience.
. . . I had not planned to be
arrested"), stressing that it wasn't, as
many have romanticized, because her feet
were tired that she didn't move, but
because she was "tired of being
oppressed . . . just plain tired." Her
remarks, disposed somewhat arbitrarily
into sections topically named "Fear,"
"Pain," "Character," "Faith," "Values,"
reflect her lifelong commitment to
justice for black Americans and to peace
and equal opportunity for all. |
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The Last Holiday: A Memoir
By Gil Scott Heron
Shortly after we republished The Vulture and The Nigger Factory, Gil started to tell me about The Last Holiday, an account he was writing of a multi-city tour that he ended up doing with Stevie Wonder in late 1980 and early 1981. Originally Bob Marley was meant to be playing the tour that Stevie Wonder had conceived as a way of trying to force legislation to make Martin Luther King's birthday a national holiday. At the time, Marley was dying of cancer, so Gil was asked to do the first six dates. He ended up doing all 41. And Dr King's birthday ended up becoming a national holiday ("The Last Holiday because America can't afford to have another national holiday"), but Gil always felt that Stevie never got the recognition he deserved and that his story needed to be told. The first chapters of this book were given to me in New York when Gil was living in the Chelsea Hotel. Among the pages was a chapter called Deadline that recounts the night they played Oakland, California, 8 December; it was also the night that John Lennon was murdered. Gil uses Lennon's violent end as a brilliant parallel to Dr King's assassination and as a biting commentary on the constraints that sometimes lead to newspapers getting things wrong. —Jamie Byng, Guardian / Gil_reads_"Deadline" (audio) / Gil Scott-Heron
& His Music Gil Scott
Heron Blue Collar
Remember Gil Scott- Heron |
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The New Jim Crow
Mass Incarceration in the Age of
Colorblindness
By Michele Alexander
Contrary to the
rosy picture of race embodied in Barack
Obama's political success and Oprah
Winfrey's financial success, legal
scholar Alexander argues vigorously and
persuasively that [w]e have not ended
racial caste in America; we have merely
redesigned it. Jim Crow and legal racial
segregation has been replaced by mass
incarceration as a system of social
control (More African Americans are
under correctional control today... than
were enslaved in 1850). Alexander
reviews American racial history from the
colonies to the Clinton administration,
delineating its transformation into the
war on drugs. She offers an acute
analysis of the effect of this mass
incarceration upon former inmates who
will be discriminated against, legally,
for the rest of their lives, denied
employment, housing, education, and
public benefits. Most provocatively, she
reveals how both the move toward
colorblindness and affirmative action
may blur our vision of injustice: most
Americans know and don't know the truth
about mass incarceration—but her
carefully researched, deeply engaging,
and thoroughly readable book should
change that.—Publishers
Weekly |
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
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January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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