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| Rosa Parks on a Montgomery bus, 1956 |
The events of December 1st, 1955, have become an iconic moment in American history. That was the day that
Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, because she was "colored" and sitting in a seat reserved for whites when the bus was full. As she later told the story, Parks wasn't physically tired. She was morally and spiritually tired of an abusive racist society that forced black Americans to the back of every bus, every line, and every opportunity. Parks was already active in the civil rights movement and had been thinking about her situation and that of other black Americans for some time. The moment of her passive resistance may have been spontaneous, but it had been building for some time. It didn't "just" happen.
For the most part, the Holy Spirit works deep within us in ways that we aren't even aware of. The Spirit is at work prompting our hearts to new and better life. It just so happened that on the December day Rosa Parks listened to her heart and by a simple refusal to budge changed the course of history. It should not surprise us that she was an active, faithful Christian, who belonged to African Methodist Episcopal (AME) churches in Alabama and Michigan.
