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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us October 31, 2005 Case In Point : Rosa Parks Rosa Parks left Jim Crow behind Rosa Parks died in her home Oct. 24 in Detroit. She was 92 years old. Over the last 50 years, she had become the defining symbol of the civil rights movement. Her one act of defiance on a December day in 1955 set in motion events that would erode and finally eliminate the Jim Crow laws that had stood for almost 100 years. It was a seminal moment in what would be a harrowing march for justice, led by a young, 26-year-old minister, Martin Luther King Jr. The term Jim Crow is believed to date back to 1830 when Thomas White, a white minstrel performer, blackened his face with charcoal paste or burnt cork and performed a lampooning jig while singing the lyrics to the song, “Jump Jim Crow.” The song ends with the words, “Weel about and turn about and do jis so, Eb’ry time I weel about I jump Jim Crow.” Eventually the stereotype of the dancing, simple, happy-go-lucky black man, as portrayed by a white man in black face, became a cultural stereotype and the name Jim Crow was thought of as a racial slur. The laws that were instituted throughout the South, during Reconstruction and after that were aimed at disenfranchising southern blacks, were called Jim Crow laws. Segregation and disenfranchisement were part of the post-Civil War history, often made manifest in the most brutal ways: between 1889 and 1930, 3,700 black men and women were lynched in the United States. Countless others went unreported in the press. In 1883, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Civil Rights Act of 1875, a law that stipulated all persons shall be entitled to full and equal enjoyment of public accommodations. In 1896, the same court upheld Plessy v. Ferguson, a lower court ruling that found that keeping the races separate was not unconstitutional as long as the accommodations provided for blacks were equal to those offered to whites. The Plessy case proved devastating to the efforts on the part of blacks to achieve equal rights. Soon public buses, restrooms, drinking fountains, libraries, courthouses, waiting rooms were segregated. Signs saying “whites” and “colored” became commonplace. Jim Crow had now become part of the social fabric of of the South. On the afternoon of Dec. 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Ala., Rosa Parks was in a hurry to get home after a long day working as a seamstress. She boarded a Cleveland Avenue bus driven by James Blake. In Montgomery, like most states in the South at the time, separate but equal ruled, and so Ms. Parks found a seat in the middle of the bus in the “colored” section. The law directed that if the front of the bus filled up with white passengers, then the driver would move the “colored” sign back, in effect turning a “colored” section into a “white” section and forcing the black passengers to give up their seats and move to the rear of the bus. Ms. Parks and three other black men were told by Blake to move in order to accommodate one white man who had boarded. Ms. Parks did not move. She stated, “When he saw me still sitting, he asked if I was going to stand up and I said, ‘No, I’m not.’ And he said, ‘Well, if you don’t stand up, I’m going to have to call the police and have you arrested.’ I said, ‘You may do that.’” What Ms. Parks did in that one moment was stunningly courageous, for it was done in an historical context where blacks had been arrested, even killed, for disobeying Jim Crow laws. Though the mythic story surrounding that refusal says that Ms. Parks was exhausted after a long day’s work, that her feet were sore and she was bone weary, her decision to remain seated was based on much deeper feelings. “People always said I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired, but that wasn’t true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of the day. I was tired of giving in.” Tired of “giving in.” Consider that all blacks were forced to board the bus, pay their fares, and then step back off the bus, walk to the rear door, and again embark. Often, before they could get back on, the bus driver would drive away, leaving them behind in a swirl of exhaust. This was not atypical treatment, rather it was Jim Crow, and clearly it was a demeaning experience that wore away at the soul. In “Stride Toward Freedom,” Dr. King wrote, “Actually, no one can understand the actions of Mrs. Parks unless he realizes that eventually the cup of endurance runs over and the human personality cries out, ‘I can take it no longer.’” The arrest of Ms. Parks galvanized the black community of Montgomery, and with Martin Luther King at the head, a boycott of the town’s buses was organized. For some 381 days, 40,000 black citizens got to work as best they could, many walking miles. During that time snipers fired into black leaders’ homes, including Dr. King’s. Bombs were tossed into black churches and the homes of ministers. In 1956, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation in public transportation was unconstitutional. The boycott ended. The civil rights movement that would sweep America had begun. By refusing to stand up, Rosa Parks, a profile in courage, not only stood up but stepped forward. It was Jim Crow who was left behind, watching as the bus drove away. Case in Point is a weekly editorial column designed to provide in-depth commentary on current events. Responses should be less than 250 words and sent to [email protected]. 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