Rosa Parks

Back in 1950s, Blacks in the southern states of America were subjected to segregation laws. They were not allowed to vote. Some theatres, restaurants, and even churches were off-limit to them. In Montgomery, Alabama, Blacks were forced to ride in the rear of buses. They had to stand if Whites wanted their seats. On December 1, 1955, Parks, an ordinary 42-year-old seamstress on her way home from work, refused to give up her sit to a White man.

Nothing dramatised the civil rights movement more than Rosa Parks' simple non-violent protest by not giving up her sit. (Later another dramatic pick came with Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech). She was arrested. This set off Montgomery bus boycott. Blacks started walking miles after miles to go to their work, sending bus companies almost out of business. These protests also shot Martin Luther King to prominence as leader of the non-violent civil rights movement. Finally, in November 1956, the Supreme Court of America declared segregated bus system unconstitutional. The victory encouraged the civil rights movement to snowball into an even bigger movement against all racial discrimination. By the 1960s, all racist laws in America were revoked.

Rosa Parks' story is not limited to one bus ride. All through her life she remained active in the struggle for equal rights.

At a time when Hurricane Katrina exposed fault lines of race and class in America, citizens there should revisit the Rosa Parks story as an inspiration to change the society. For the rest of us in the world, she is a tale of how an ordinary person with an ordinary act of extraordinary courage could change a society.