The congressional ceremony recently marking the placement of a sepia-colored statue of civil rights icon Mrs. Rosa Parks left me wondering what she would think of this spectacle of politicians, spilling all over each other to praise this quiet, dignified seamstress, who got tired of giving up her seat on a segregated bus, and said no. Almost every politician mentioned those very words: quiet, dignified, religious—but above all, quiet. Standing behind history’s curtain, now safely lying in the kingdom of death, truly quiet now, would she recognize this self that politicians have molded in stone, frozen one moment in her long full life?
It is doubtful. For her life did not stop on December 1, 1955 when she refused to leave that bus seat—nor was that when her activist life began. She was a member and officer of the NAACP for over a decade before that day, and more importantly, she joined and/or supported a wealth of Black movements during her long life, from the Black nationalist group, the Republic of New Africa, independent Black schools, the reparation struggle, and beyond. She admired Malcolm X, supported armed Black self-defense, and worked against imperial wars from Vietnam to Iraq; against mass incarceration, and to abolish the death penalty. Professor Jeanne Theoharis, in her recent work, The Rebellious Life of Rosa Parks, now we see how and why she was frozen in stone, locked into December 1, 1955, safe, quiet.
Rosa Parks, like Martin Luther King Jr. was frozen in stone and in time by political entities who want to seem progressive while they daily defend programs of state repression. In her recent work, The Rebellious Life of Rosa Parks, Theoharis recounts a life of resistance, of radicalism, of deepening commitment, and yes, of change that enriched her and didn’t leave her sealed in the cold ice of December 1955 on a city bus. It was a life of rebellion. From in prison nation, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
These commentaries are recorded by Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
