Thank You, Sister Rosa... 62 Years Ago Tonight.

As the random calendaring fates would have it, we honor yet another "mother", this morning -- the mother of the formal end to segregation -- on public transportation, in the United States. [And. . . after the pull quote -- a much later rendered musical selection, via YouTube.]

Yet, to be sure, we also honor all those who came before -- and after her, here -- via the Wikipedia references to each. But few had the wide-spread impact on popular culture in America, that she had. Truly, thank you, Sister Rosa:

. . . .On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, young Rosa Parks refused to obey bus driver James F. Blake's order to give up her seat in the "colored section" to a white passenger, after the whites-only section was filled. Parks was not the first person to resist bus segregation.

Others had taken similar steps, including Bayard Rustin in 1942, Irene Morgan in 1946, Lillie Mae Bradford in 1951, Sarah Louise Keys in 1952, and the members of the ultimately successful Browder v. Gayle 1956 lawsuit (Claudette Colvin, Aurelia Browder, Susie McDonald, and Mary Louise Smith) who were arrested in Montgomery for not giving up their bus seats months and years before Parks.

NAACP organizers believed that Parks was the best candidate for seeing through a court challenge after her arrest for civil disobedience in violating Alabama segregation laws, although eventually her case became bogged down in the state courts while the Browder v. Gayle case succeeded. . . .

We thank you, one and all. And we are more alike than not alike, my friend. I see you. I do. . . gone since 2005, but I do. . . .



नमस्ते