Parked in History

Rosa Parks, an icon of the United States Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s passed away at her home in Michigan last night. Parks, who died of natural causes, was 92 years old. A lot of people still say that simply because on December 1st, 1955, a tired 42-year-old seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama refused to give up her bus seat to a White person after a long day at work, a whole movement for civil and human rights began in the United States. That is an understatement of the simmering discontent in the African American community at the time, of course, but there is no doubt that her seemingly insignificant act was exactly the sort of trigger that was needed to formally start the movement by addressing the problem of segregated public transport. Can there ever be another Rosa Parks moment in the Civil Rights movement? We can only hope.