5.2 Political Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks was politically aware, astute and active all of her adult life. At the time of her arrest she was 42 – not an older woman at all – and had already proved to be a capable activist and organiser. She was a prominent and active leader within the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the major civil rights organisation of the time. She took a particular interest in developing the political agency and education of young people, leading the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP’s Youth Council (she would later embrace the Detroit Youth Council). This commitment to young people persisted throughout Rosa Parks’ life, as she saw developing the knowledge and abilities of young people as essential for leadership to enhance justice and equity. Rosa Parks had also attended a two-week workshop on desegregation at the Highlander Folk School, a trailblazing organisation dedicated to developing leadership and organising skills for social change. The techniques and ideas she learnt there expanded her knowledge, contacts and nous.
Rosa Parks had been ejected from the bus in Montgomery before – for refusing to re-enter it at the back door, having paid for her ticket at the front. Other people had also resisted bus segregation. As stated by Theoharis and Burgin:
Viola White [was] beaten and fined $10 [in 1944]; her case was still in appeals when she passed away 10 years later. In 1950, police shot and killed Hilliard Brooks, a World War II veteran, when he boarded the bus after having a few drinks and refused to reboard from the back door—and the police were called. Witnesses rebutted the officer’s claims that he acted in self-defence, but he wasn’t prosecuted.
In March 1955, only nine months before Rosa Parks’ protest, Claudette Colvin, a 15-year-old girl, was convicted for refusing to give up her seat to a white person earlier in the year. Many people in the civil rights movement wanted to start a boycott of the buses after Claudette Colvin’s arrest. Rosa Parks herself worked for Claudette Colvin’s cause as a fundraiser (Theoharis, 2015).
Rosa Parks never compromised on her belief in the possibility for radical change. After starting to work for Detroit congressman John Conyers in 1965, she dedicated herself to hands-on organising on behalf of local people while also encouraging young people to be bold enough to pursue militant action when necessary.
Her political outlook was both principled and pragmatic (Theoharis, 2015). She appreciated the legacy of love and non-violent resistance pioneered by Martin Luther King Jr., with the intention of appealing to the better angels of a majority of people in the US. However, she also believed in self-defence when necessary, embracing some of the ideas and ethos of the Black Power movement. She would pass on this belief in pragmatic and principled values to the young people she helped.
Theoharis equates Rosa Parks’ politics to her skill as a seamstress making quilts:
The faith that from small pieces would emerge a majestic whole, the ability to sew from many places and to see the value in new materials for the colour and texture of the quilt, informed her political life…[New swatches] would be sewn into the existing whole because she could see how [they] came out of other designs and helped give added dimension to the emerging pattern. Above all, the need for people to work together and not be divided, for people to be able to pitch in to assist the actions of others, was key to her philosophy: ‘In quilting maybe somebody would come in to visit, it might be a friend, and would just join in and help.’
The experience and leadership ability of Rosa Parks meant that when she was told to vacate her seat, she could see the potential political significance of the moment.