Rosa Parks' life shows the power of one
It's the quiet ones you have to watch. Rosa Parks, icon of the civil rights movement, spoke in a voice that could barely be heard across the aisle of an Alabama bus but that ultimately echoed around the world.
Known widely as the "mother of the civil rights movement," Parks, who died Monday, is noted in history books primarily as the fulcrum for the history-changing crusade of civil disobedience.
She left an important legacy for those of us living in an increasingly apathetic age.
Above all, Rosa Parks symbolizes the power of one.
She was just one woman who already had quietly resisted the Jim Crow laws enforced in Montgomery. Long before that historic 1955 day, Parks frequently had opted to walk rather than comply with rules forcing black bus riders to pay their fares and then re-enter from the back door.
But on that day, she'd just had enough and refused to yield her seat to a white rider. Her NAACP compatriots recognized that this one woman's dignity and resolve made her the ideal champion of the cause: defeating segregation laws that created a disenfranchised, subordinate class of citizens.
Her voice was amplified in the stirring speeches delivered in resounding tones by Martin Luther King Jr. But it was this passive resistance of one person that gave others courage to act. Indeed, Parks stood for the realization that an individual could become a powerful force for change.
That was a potent realization, and not only for those fighting racial bigotry. It is also a reminder to all Americans, whose nation was founded on rebellion, that reshaping society often starts with a single act.
Campaigns for women's rights, environmental protections and various minority interests are studded with names of the outspoken few who are willing to sacrifice personal welfare for the greater good.
Parks lived a quiet life, on the whole, but her role in history is ingrained. For she taught us an indelible lesson: It takes a powerful movement to turn the course of history, but it can start with the simple resolve of a single person.
