Rosa Parks

December 1 was the 55th anniversary of when Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus. Recently, IU South Bend hosted a speaker, Nikki Giovanni, who wrote a children's book about Rosa Parks and shared many insights into Parks that I hadn't heard before, or explained in detail (Giovanni knew her personally).

• Contrary to the myth, Rosa Parks did not refuse to move because she was tired from working all day, she moved because she was "tired of giving in." She was already very much an activist within the NAACP so she was very much aware of the repercussions of her actions.


• She sat in the blacks only section. But when the white section was full, the bus driver ordered her to give up her seat (in essence, expanding the whites only section). The bus driver was the same one who, 12 years earlier, sped off and left her in the rain when she initially refused to enter through the back of the bus.


• Parks wasn't the first to refuse to move. Nine months earlier, a 15-year old girl refused to move and was arrested. So why didn't this spark a boycott? Well, the treatment of blacks on the city buses had been an issue for a while. But if a case was to be made, they needed a claimant above reproach. This girl, shortly after her arrest, had a child by an older, married man. The NAACP figured she'd be vilified in the press and so they didn't pursue a case (and charges against her were later dropped). Parks fit the bill as above reproach, similar to how Jackie Robinson was selected to break the color barrier in baseball.

But the most fascinating anecdote Giovanni shared was one that I had never heard before. Rosa Parks was not the only one asked to move. There were a couple other black men that were asked to move, and they did. They were never heard from again and Giovanni speculated that they were likely ashamed of their actions and would probably be seen as cowards for abandoning this woman.

But Giovanni said these men absolutely did the right thing and wish they could have been commended for doing so. In those days, for a black male to put up such resistance would have had dire consequences. Their refusal to move likely could have resulted in violence and certainly a much different outcome. The bus boycotts may never have happened.

So when these men sitting next to Rosa Parks moved, this allowed her to sit there all alone, determined to hold her ground . . . and the rest is history.