Happy Anniversary...

I find it somewhat amusing, and very ironic, that in our quest to further divide ourselves along racial lines...seemingly we can't hardly wait to do so, many of us, dare I say most of us, have missed an iconic anniversary in the Civil Rights movement in the latter half of the 20th century...

Hello, Rosa Parks...


62 years ago, on Dec. 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man when ordered to do so. She was arrested and convicted of disorderly conduct. This event triggered the boycott of the Montgomery, Alabama bus system that lasted for over a year, and brought to our attention, those of us who were alive then--I wasn't even a gleam in my Daddies eyes yet, though one of my older sisters was --a young 26 year old minister by the name of Martin Luther King, Jr. The boycott lead directly to a Supreme Court decision that lead to the desegregation of the Montgomery Public Transit System. It was a milestone in the civil rights movement. Though national desegregation didn't follow until the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

So much has changed since that day in Montgomery. Yet for all the changes many of the attitudes still remain. These people risked life, and limb, to bring equality to this country.

For what? So it can be thrown away in some misguided grab at some form of payback? A college newspaper with colored only comments section...really, it's apparently a thing. I wonder what Rosa Parks would think about that?

Separate but equal... Wasn't good then, isn't good now.

From this... to this. We've all seen other examples of willingly segregating on a basis of skin tone. It was wrong then, why, suddenly, is it, by all appearances, to some, right?

I'll admit to being puzzled by it. All my life, I've had nothing but the utmost respect for the old Civil Rights workers/marchers, many of them are, after my own parents, people I look up to as exemplars of what we're supposed to be.

But I find myself amazed, and saddened, that such a landmark anniversary goes unremarked by ATS members...many of whom are outspoken on matters regarding civil rights.

United, we stand... Divided, we fall. So which are we?

Well said...

a reply to: seagull

Its a painful thing to watch. All those years, all that progress thrown away and for what? Political gain for the most part it seems to me.

I remember my parents sitting me down to talk about it and explain the things I was seeing in the news. When MLK was assassinated, it was akin to the tone in our home when JFK was killed.

Parks and King were genuine American hero's and to see it bastardized in the way it is now is sickening to me. I never imagined after all the progress that it would begin again.

a reply to: seagull

United, we stand... Divided, we fall. So which are we?

If ATS is any indication...we fall!

a reply to: seagull

United, we stand... Divided, we fall. So which are we?

we does not divide us
we does not compute
we divide us
we are anonymous

The only "political" thread worth any merit today.

a reply to: olaru12

It difficult to wrap my head around. I started a thread about it last night, hoping to bring a philosophical perspective to it, to what's going on with our social environment in terms of a resurgence of our 'darker selves' as a society.

You know, I actually read somewhere that the old "conspiracy theorists" suddenly went alt-right with a vengeance! Suppressed rage, or something or other.

Hopefully, whatever is going on will be temporary.

Good thread Seagull. Food for thought.

a reply to: seagull

Thanks for the reminder. I was a child when she rode that bus and all the riots were taking place. Glued to the tv. I didn't understand. Only black people I saw were when we went down town. Once went to drink out of a fountain and was reprimanded because it wasn't for whites. I might get different germs lol. When 12 and they were talking about integrating schools, I asked my southern grandmother why no one wanted us to go to school together. Her answer: We are better than them. My question: Why? they are just people like us. I stand by that.

I do recall the inconvenience of busing my children when in 2nd grade but it paid off in the end.

Think Rosa and MLK would be disappointed to see it has come almost full circle. And they would be disappointed in the elected leaders from both races who support this and keep the people down.

There are a few who try to speak up but they aren't heard.

a reply to: angeldoll

I actually read somewhere that the old "conspiracy theorists" suddenly went alt-right with a vengeance! Suppressed rage, or something or other.

Russians

a reply to: seagull

When i was a kid, back in the early 80s, they were desegregating Odessa Tx public schools (Ector County ISD).

I was baffled at the time. Im egalitarian to my core, dyed in the wool. And never really understood the racist hate that was apparently going on in a neighboring city.

God bless Rosa Parks and Dr King. They were bright lights shining through dark times

a reply to: seagull

I wasn't alive when Rosa sparked the Civil Rights Movement, but I came along soon after. And I came along in the heart of it all: Alabama.

I can take you to the spot where the Scottsboro Boys allegedly raped a white woman... who recanted her accusation on her deathbed years after they had hung for their 'crime.'

I have stood on the State Capitol steps where the debates took place.

I have seen the schoolhouse where George C. Wallace stood defiantly in front of the door.

I have walked downtown Selma where the marches were organized.

I have been blessed to live in the era that saw minorities go from despised to accepted.. from second-class citizens to full citizens... from inferior to equal. I have seen the KKK fall. Thanks to Rosa, I started a school that was not segregated, but I also started a school where the races were suspicious of each other. I watched as we all became tolerant and accepting of each other... and some became friends despite a history of intolerance and suspicion.

I have known those in my grandparents' generation speak of minorities as less than truly human, out of honest belief rather than the assumed anger... those in my parents' generation accept them as human, but not want to get too close... those in my generation become friends... and those in my children's generation become colorblind.

It took too long to happen, looking back, but it did happen. And that it happened is one of the greatest success stories of the USA. We fixed our mistake. We persevered through the pain and fighting, together. We were almost done, almost truly equal, almost surely one nation united.

But then something changed.

Suddenly everything became about race again. Suddenly having light skin was something to be ashamed of, or to apologize for. Suddenly people couldn't talk together any more, because one would falsely accuse the other of racism. Suddenly we were once again a divided nation, unable to coexist together.

And suddenly, the memory of Rosa Parks and Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was tarnished.

"I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

Source

I still have a dream. I have a dream that one day, riots and anger will vanish from the streets of our cities. I have a dream that one day, people will again walk hand-in-hand without caring about physical irrelevancies. I have a dream that all men and women will consider themselves brother and sister.

RIP and Thank You, Rosa Parks. Your dream, Dr. King's dream, was hijacked and taken away. May my dream give it back.

TheRedneck

oh thats a cool thing I can mention to my parents, as today is their wedding anniversary!

Great thread, Seagull. I’m ashamed to admit that I didn’t know.

Take our skin off and we’re all pretty much the same.

Interesting, nary a peep on the WWW at all. Interesting, very very interesting. I watched all the regular morning shows, msm was busy picking apart President Trump, whats his name the news castor who was inappropriate and the rest of the holiday gift guide type stuff. And to think...

Thank you for the reminder of this great, courageous woman. I see no color, only love.

Is this truly what we want to go back to? Most of us, of course, don't want this. Some of us though, I have to wonder, I truly do. Not just whites, but blacks, too. I name no names, because only they know for sure.

I grew up in the Pacific North-west. My exposure to the South is limited, and took place in the late 80's. I can not pretend to know what the South was like during the height of the Civil Rights movement--People I know who were there, grew up there, say it's changed, and changed for the better.

I guess I'll find out for myself, as within the next month or so...I keep saying that, it'll be true one day...I'll be moving to Tennessee just north of the Alabama border--an easy drive to Montgomery. Or Selma. I'll get to see, first hand, the changes that the South has made.

There's an old, old song that goes like this:

Free at last, free at last
I thank God I'm free at last
Free at last, free at last
I thank God I'm free at last

Way down yonder in the graveyard walk
I thank God I'm free at last
Me and my Jesus going to meet and talk
I thank God I'm free at last

On my knees when the light pass'd by
I thank God I'm free at last
Tho't my soul would rise and fly
I thank God I'm free at last

Some of these mornings, bright and fair
I thank God I'm free at last
Goin' meet King Jesus in the air
I thank God I'm free at last

Link

It'd be shame if when we pass on to meet what ever it is that comes next, we were still chained by old hatreds, and grievances, that should have long since been laid to rest. What is solved by vengeance? Call it what you will, those embracing this divisive rhetoric, no matter how you attempt to justify it, it's still vengeance. Shall we go the route of the generations upon generation that are raised to hate them? Where any act can be justified because it was done to them?

Generational hatred. Is this where we truly want to go? Hatred of them what wronged us...fifty years ago...a hundred years ago...a thousand years ago...ten thousand years ago.

It's hardly a unique condition to America, of course. It's passed down in Ireland. the Middle East. Africa. South America. Asia. I grew up thinking that America was different...the Civil Rights movement brought to light, odd as it may seem, just how much like other places we are. That same movement also showed me that we have a chance to be unlike those places, too. We can face up to the darkness in our collective past, together. We can, if we're so minded, embrace, rather than push away, our differences. Live and let live.

John Kennedy famously paraphrased the following in his New Frontiers speech:

We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light a candle that can guide us through the darkness to a safe and sure future. For the world is changing. The old era is ending. The old ways will not do.

The problems are not all solved and the battles are not all won and we stand today on the edge of a New Frontier - a frontier of unknown opportunities and perils, a frontier of unfulfilled hopes and threats.

There is much work still to be done to dispel that darkness. The work, however, can not be completed, or even continued, until the divisiveness is pushed to the side, and its made known to them that their actions are unwelcome. Their words and thoughts are their own, and they're welcome to them. But no one says we have to listen to them.

a reply to: worldstarcountry

Best wishes to 'em, and many more anniversaries.

a reply to: seagull

Great post.

The progress Rosa Parks stood up for, and MLK gave his life for, is being thrown to the wind. I almost wish some evil cabal was directing this madness in a way of their choosing—that is something we can at least correct—but more and more it becomes apparent that tribalism, stupidity and laziness are the root causes, ironically the same factors that brought about the same madness the good people of the civil rights movement were always fighting against.

Thanks for writing that.

I don't know about anyone else.... but i'm appalled that I'm not hearing any mention or blurb in the Mainstream media. Of course there is a chance I might have missed the scrolling section below the anchor (sigh).

I swear it seems like many would like the mere foundations and mentioning of historical moments to be passed by (or the conspiratorial side of me would say something akin to 'erased').

Happy Anniversary Rosa![/]

a reply to: seagull

I heard a quote recently that's been humming in my mind ever since and your thread is where it needs to be.

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

Theodore Parker (Abolitionist)

It's cool to think Rosa Parks was an instrument of that 'moral arc' in the same way thousands of others have been through the centuries. The very ideal of 'justice' is depicted as blind which removes skin colour and culture from the measuring of fairness. We seem to be forgetting it these past few years.

What a shame that parts of society have gone back to the race debates of the mid-1960s. I believe the quote to be truthful and we'll overcome the popular injustices of our times.

a reply to: Lolliek

Take our skin off and we’re all pretty much the same.

Dead?

Out of curiosity, does anyone remember the name of the 15 year old pregnant woman who did the same thing as Rosa Parks a year earlier?