THE REAL ROSA PARKS We learn much from how we present our
heroes. A few years ago, on Martin Luther King. Day, I was
interviewed on CNN. So was Rosa Parks, by phone from Los
Angeles. "We're very honored to have her," said the host. "Rosa
Parks was the woman who wouldn't go to the back of the bus. She
wouldn't get up and give her seat in the white section to a
white person. That set in motion the year-long bus boycott in
Montgomery. It earned Rosa Parks the title of 'mother of the
Civil Rights movement.'" I was excited to hear Parks's voice and
to be part of the same show. Then it occurred to me that the
host's description--the story's standard rendition--stripped the
Montgomery boycott of all its context. Before refusing to give
up her bus seat, Parks had spent twelve years helping lead the
local NAACP chapter, along with union activist E.D. Nixon, from
the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, teachers from the local
Negro college, and a variety of ordinary members of Montgomery's
African American community.