Black Herstory: Rosa Parks Did Much More than Sit on a Bus

Written by Rachel Griffin

As a Black feminist scholar, every February I find myself troubled by the ways that we simultaneously remember and forget women who look like me. Not that I’m satisfied with the memory of Black women every other month of the year but February–Black History Month–can be especially disappointing. I find myself wanting to rant to anyone within earshot, “Rosa Parks did more than sit on a bus!!!”

My urge to scream is rooted in our common cultural practice of remembering Parks only as a demure and delicate old seamstress who sparked the civil rights movement. The common assertion is that Parks’ moment in history began in December 1955 when she refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in Montgomery, Ala. But we must confront that statement, because each time we confine her memory to that moment we erase part of her admirable character, strategic intellect and indomitable spirit.

To be clear, Rosa Parks left us a deliberate legacy of activism, not an accidental activist moment. Furthermore, she, like many other Black women, should not be remembered in the shadows of Dr. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. or any other Black male civil rights activist, but rather right alongside of them. We must realize and teach that when Rosa Parks was helping lay the foundation for the civil rights movement, Dr. King was still in high school.

At the intersection of sexism and racism, it is not surprising that we remember Rosa Parks as demure and delicate, since the image of her sitting quietly with her hands folded politely in her lap is commonplace. However, if we get beyond our stereotypical expectations of who a Black woman can be, we bear witness to her steely grace and steadfast commitment to defending human dignity. She had been doing so for years before she ever got on that bus.

Rosa Parks was taught as a child to sleep with her clothes on in case she was awakened during the night to run from the Klan. Parks, as one of the first women to join the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), traveled throughout segregated Alabama to document racialized voter intimidation and brutality. It was Rosa Parks who interviewed Recy Taylor, a Black woman violently raped by seven White men, and helped form the Alabama Committee for Equal Justice for Mrs. Recy Taylor. Parks was also a woman who vigorously supported the NAACP, Montgomery Improvement Association, Alabama Voter’s League and Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, just to name a few of her key activist roots.

Then in 1955 at age 42, she, like the women who did so before her, refused to give up her seat because of the color of her skin. Soon after that historic moment, those who loved her pleaded with her not to become the central figure of the Montgomery bus boycott–but it was Rosa Parks who courageously did so anyway, for her sake and for ours.

Please remember her this month, and every month, for all of who she was on the day she refused to give up her seat and changed our lives: a bold, remarkable, fierce, benevolent and righteously indignant woman.

This post was originally published by Ms. Magazine.

Reclaiming The Cause: When Your Abuser Claims To Be A Feminist

Cornel West on MLK Jr, Catastrophe and Revolution

Photo from The USIA via Wikimedia Commons

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Debbie C.

4:42AM PST on Mar 1, 2012

Wow - Rosa Parks was into a little of everything. I did not know any of this. Thanks Rachel for the article!!

send a green star

Eric H.

5:17AM PST on Feb 8, 2012

Thank you so much for this article. I had no idea!! To me she was just a figure in the civil rights movement, acting spontaneously out of fatigue.
What an amazing lady.

Fa'izah J. A.

7:17PM PST on Feb 7, 2012

Thanks for this article. History has rountinely minimized, if not ignored or deleted, the many valuable contributions that women of every race/ethnicity has made. Women have always been more than just the helpmate of men, but rather have been power houses in their own right.

Sadly, even with the advances made towards full equality for women, women are still often defined by who their husbands are, rather than being defined for who they are and have accomplished as individuals.

K. J. N.

5:55AM PST on Feb 7, 2012

Thank you for great article. Didn't know so much about Rosa Parks.

ii q.

6:06PM PST on Feb 6, 2012

Hillary K.

5:30PM PST on Feb 6, 2012

Whoa! I have got to read more about her, she sounds like a spitfire I'd have loved to have known.
And Stephen M., shut up. Go troll somewhere else.

J.L. A.

4:21PM PST on Feb 6, 2012

Thank you for helping make Rosa Parks a whole person instead of a brief glimpse of symbolism that presents an incomplete picture.

Elizabeth M.

4:08PM PST on Feb 6, 2012

This is a very informative article about Rosa Parks. Herstory was a very important story of early feminisim and racism, and her memory should be right there beside Dr. Martin Luther King, as far as I am concerned.

Hugh W.

9:51AM PST on Feb 6, 2012

I think it was a great article. Thank you for the additional information that is so often forgotten.

Dorothy C.

8:53AM PST on Feb 6, 2012

Not a good title that's right! History translation is "histoire", and there is no link with his or her in french, so not even notice it. But, do not stop only in it! It is a good article ;-)