Yesterday was the anniversary of the arrest of Rosa Parks. She’s one of my all-time heroes. If you don’t know her incredible story, I’ll tell it in a nutshell.
On December 1st, Rosa was travelling to work by bus. It was the era when blacks were forced to sit in a different part of the vehicle and were forced to give up their seat if a white person required it. Rosa refused to give up her seat and was arrested. As a result, the growing Civil Rights movement under the leadership of Martin Luther King Jr rallied behind her arrest and called for the entire black community to boycott the buses. The black population were the majority of the paying customers on buses, so when they decided to boycott the transport companies began to sink into finanical difficulty. That was the famous Montgomery Bus Boycott which led to the end of racial segregation.
Rosa Parks is hailed as one of the great figures in the Civil Rights Movement. She was a woman who knew her calling and was willing to risk everything to stand for truth. What a legacy! She is someone I deeply respect.
Sometimes you just need to take a stand. What will you stand for? What is the one thing you are willing to risk it all for?
Sadly even though racial segregation is largely over, there are still examples of it’s continuance today. Check out the video below from this year, about a mixed race couple who are not welcome in their American church. Shocking.
“A church in Pike County, Kentucky, voted this week to ban interracial couples from becoming members of the congregation, as well as from participating in worship services. Melvin Thompson at the ironically named Gulnare Freewill Baptist Church, asked that a proposal stating unequivocally that “the church did not condone interracial marriage” be brought to a vote. It passed 9 to 6, with several members abstaining. Thompson was apparently incensed that the daughter of church secretary Dean Harville brought her Zimbabwean fiancé to church.” (Source)
It’s interesting and heartbreaking that many of the issues of injustice that we assume are “done and dusted” really aren’t. That’s why I focus on women in ministry so much. Many people thought that once we got the “ok” for women to be ordained in the Church of England, we’d crossed through that barrier and it was all done. But the reality is that with racism and sexism, much injustice still continues today.
I want to be like Rosa Parks – willing to give my life for something that matters. To make the world a better place for people who feel crushed and sidelined. That way I’ll die knowing I lived for something that will outlive me.
Over to you:
- Are you familiar with the story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and Rosa Parks?
- What is the one thing – or several things – that you feel called to give your life to?
- How do we know where the line is between obeying the law because God instituted it, or breaking it for a good cause?
- How does all of this reflect on the Occupy protests?
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