The real Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks, the civil right campaigner from the US, passed away earlier this year. She is often remembered as a heroic woman whose individual action initiated the Montgomery bus boycott.
In The Real Rosa Parks, Paul Loeb writes about how the emphasis on her individual heroism can make it difficult for people to see themselves as agents of change.
"We find it hard to imagine that ordinary human beings with ordinary flaws might make a critical difference in worthy social causes."
Rosa Parks was a 12 year veteran of the civil rights movement before she refused to give up her seat on the bus. She took part in campaign training and education for social change at the Highlander Center in Tennessee and was part of other collective actions that led up to the bus boycott. Her involvement was gradual and cautious at first until she had enough experience and collective support to take that courageous step.
"Parks' journey suggests that change is the product of deliberate, incremental action, whereby we join together to try to shape a better world. Sometimes our struggles will fail, as did many earlier efforts of Parks, her peers, and her predecessors. Other times they may bear modest fruits. And at times they will trigger a miraculous outpouring of courage and heart--as happened with her arrest and all that followed."
Read the full article in Znet's activism section: The Real Rosa Parks.
For more on Rosa Parks, see also: Thank you, Rosa Parks, also on Znet.