Almost everyone knows who Rosa Parks is. She has become famous for her act of defiance in refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white person. But I think it's hard for some of us today to really understand how courageous her actions were.
Even though Rosa Parks was living in a fairly modern society, that society was segregated. Segregation is when there are laws that say people of different races do not all have the same privileges. The segregation laws in some parts of the United States during the 1950s kept races separate from each other in many public places. The very idea of segregation is, to me, almost impossible to fathom. I just don't get how in a civilized world something like that could have been going on. With that in mind, let's get back to Rosa Parks' story.
December 1, 1955, started out like any normal day for Rosa Parks. She woke up, got ready for work, and left her house for the bus stop. Each day, she was forced to pay at the front of the bus, then exit and walk up the stairs in the back. I can just imagine her frustration in having to experience that humiliation day after day. Then after a long day of work (she was a secretary for the NAACP), she again would pay at the front, and have to go up the back stairs like a second-class citizen.
Well, on this particular day, she got on the bus after work and sat down. At the next stop, several white people got on. The bus driver glanced back, and told Rosa and the people around her to move. The other African Americans around her stood up and shuffled to the back of the bus. But Rosa stayed seated. The bus driver told her if she didn't get up, he'd have to have her arrested, to which she replied, "Then you may do that."
Rosa refused to give in to this injustice. Some people have suggested she was so weary she couldn't stand up, but that was not the case. It wasn't that she was tired physically; she was just tired of surrendering. When she sat down, she was really standing up for an oppressed people. Her people. She could have just stood up and moved so a white person could have her seat, but she didn't.
Rosa's refusal to give up her seat was one of the turning points in the history of civil rights in the United States. Her one act of quiet, peaceful defiance triggered a series of protests and boycotts, including the Montgomery Bus Boycott, in which almost all of the black people (and some whites) in Rosa's hometown of Montgomery, Alabama, refused to ride city buses for more than a year. They were tired of segregation, and they refused to put up with it any longer.
I'm afraid there aren't enough people like that today; people willing to stand up for their own rights and the rights of others. Rosa Parks remains an inspiration to those who have the same dream. The dream that one day all of us will not only be able to live together and tolerate one another, but that we will love and stand up for one another as Jesus loved us on the cross.
In her autobiography, Rosa talks about how she hated being the center of attention. But that didn't stop her from continuing to fight for equality by any means. She participated in the famous march Martin Luther King led from Selma to Montgomery. At one point during this march, she was actually put out of the march by someone who didn't know her. You see, the marchers had to wear a special color of jacket in order to participate in the final leg of the march. Rosa was not informed about this, and was kicked out several times, only to be pulled back in by someone who knew her.
I once read that when Rosa Parks was a child, her grandfather used to sit awake at night with a gun on his lap, in order to protect his family from the Ku Klux Klan. Surely her life was marked by oppression and discrimination. Yet rather than being overcome by bitterness and hatred, she chose to act for justice for herself and others.
WHAT ABOUT YOU? LIVING OUT STANDING FIRM TODAY
A lot of us are willing to stand up for ourselves, for our own rights and concerns. But are we willing to stand firm on behalf of others?
When Adolf Hitler was rising to power in Germany, a German pastor named Martin Niemöller became aware that Jews and other racial and political groups were being persecuted, arrested, and even killed because of Hitler's racist policies. Niemöller became one of the leaders of the Confessing Church, a group of Christians within Germany who vocally opposed Hitler. Because of his outspoken criticism, Niemöller himself was locked away in a concentration camp from 1937 to 1945, and narrowly escaped execution. After he was released, he wrote the following poem about the need to stand against evil:
First they came for the Communists,and I didn't speak up,because I wasn't a Communist.Then they came for the Jews,and I didn't speak up,because I wasn't a Jew.Then they came for the Catholics,and I didn't speak up,because I was a Protestant.Then they came for me,and by that timethere was no one left to speak up for me.
Many students these days stand up for things. They stand up for their favorite bands, brands, and their own personal "rights." But are these things really worth your time, energy, and commitment? Is that the kind of "hill you want to die on"? I didn't think so. Is it better to stand up for someone or something that is right or to stand up for yourself? What if we put more energy toward the things that really matter instead of spending so much energy on petty things?
I can tell you what would happen. There would be a lot fewer hungry people, a lot fewer dying children, and a lot fewer slaves in the world. If we spent more time putting our heads together and less time butting them, think of what we could accomplish! We could do so much with the time we often spend on petty things.
Is there anything you're willing to stand for (or sit for, as was the case with Rosa Parks)? I hope it has something to do with contributing to the greater good and not just expanding your own territory.
This doesn't just apply to big issues like slavery; it can apply to many other day-to-day situations. If you see someone picking on the smallest guy in the grade, you stand up for him, right? If someone makes a racist comment, you speak up, right? And if someone makes fun of Jesus Christ, you don't tolerate it.
We're under an immense pressure to conform to this world's way of doing things. If we don't go along, we might get mocked. (Oh no! Not that! Anything but that!) Plain and simple: We should stand firm for what is right, just because it is right.
"Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain." 1 Corinthians 15:58
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Taken from "Be the Change" by Zach Hunter, copyright 2007 Youth Specialties/Zondervan. Used by permission.
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