Sitting Down For What’s Right - Rosa Parks

1913–2005

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks did something that unintentionally inspired a group of committed citizens, and it was the beginning of change in the world. You may already be familiar with the story. After a long day working as a seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa boarded a segregated city bus to go home and took a seat in the back. The bus filled up, and when a white man got on and found there was no seat, the bus driver told the African Americans to give up their seats. Rosa refused . . . and was arrested.

The incident is considered the beginning of the civil rights movement in the United States. Within days, African Americans in the city stopped taking the bus in protest. For a year, they boycotted the buses. They walked, took cabs owned by African Americans, or carpooled to their destinations. The city retaliated, using an old law that prohibited boycotts to arrest some of those who stopped taking the bus.

Members of the African American community went a step further when they went to court and challenged the separate-but-equal law that allowed the bus company to segregate whites from blacks. Less than a year after Rosa refused to give up her seat, the US Supreme Court declared the segregation law unconstitutional.

What you might not know is that the woman who started all this was a devout Christian, brought up in a faith-filled home. “Prayer and the Bible became a part of my everyday thoughts and beliefs,” Parks wrote later. “I learned to put my trust in God and to seek Him as my strength.” She certainly needed God’s strength for this ordeal.

Rosa had no intention of starting a movement that day. She was just tired of the injustice. Is there an injustice that you’re tired of giving in to? It may seem overwhelming, but one small act of standing up (or in Rosa’s case, sitting down) could be just what it takes to start the ball rolling toward change.

Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the cause of orphans. Fight for the rights of widows.

Isaiah 1:17