Rosa Parks died on October 25th, 2005. She died in her own home surrounded by family and friends. Quite a feat for a woman who probably received enough death threats in her day to be ranked with the greatest freedom fighters of all time.
Rosa Parks is such a nice name. “Rosa” like the flower, and “Parks” a place where flowers grow. I wonder if she was blessed with this name, so beautiful and at the same time so simple, because it would be spoken internationally as a part of history for all time. If her name was Ernestine, Requenisha, Takisha, Shanikwa, or Lexus would it carry the same weight? Would it engender the same dreams of beauty, rest and peace?
I hate to think of racism. It drags my spirit down, when I really confront what it has done to the world. To me. Sometimes I feel it’s futile to dwell on it, but stupid to ignore it. It’s real. I have to look at it and face it down, even if it wounds my spirit. I will have children soon, and I have to prepare them, protect them, fight for them, arm them. I have to be my children’s Rosa Parks. I have to be the one to say, “No” in the face of whatever indignity threatens them.
Stories of her heroism always describe how Rosa Parks said, “No” when “a white man” demanded her seat on a bus in 1955. I’ve heard this story so many times. Stories of how brave she was. How Rosa Parks is the mother of the Civil Rights movement, but I wonder about the man. Who was this white man? Was he celebrated by his community? I bet he was. I bet he was a hero for a bunch of bigots. I bet he participated in the death threats that almost drove Rosa Parks’ husband to suicide. I bet he was somebody’s father. I bet he infected his children with his own hatred. I wonder if they are still infected.
When I was 6 years old, I was entering first grade. I did not go to my neighborhood school for first grade. The school I went to for Kindergarten was right on the corner of my street. I could walk their on my own. But my older sister, Angela, and I were a part of a new program called busing. This was 1965, and we lived in a black section of Brooklyn, New York. Now we were being bussed out to a white neighborhood. We were going to go to school with white kids for the first time. I think I was excited.
The only white person I recall from this time in my life was Dr. Lebowitz. She was an old lady with red hair. She was our pediatrician, and sometimes when we were really sick, she would come to our house, and set up the asthma tent, and give us lollipops. When we were just regular sick or needed a check up, we would go to her office, far from our tenements, to a place where people lived in houses just for themselves, like people on TV, like Beaver Cleaver. At Dr. Lebowitz;’ office, we got to play with her poodle, Pierre, the first dog I got to know. All of the other dogs I’d seen were strays that ran in packs around our neighborhood, and scared my fingers into my pockets whenever I would see them on the streets or from our second floor window.
As the bus took my sister and I to our new school, I noticed how all the houses in that area were like Dr. Lebowitz’. So I thought all the people must be nice like her, and have nice dogs that wore bows and had their nails painted blue.
I remember entering the huge schoolyard for the first time, as we stepped off the bus. Someone told us to find the sign with our grade, and line up in twos, boys in one line, girls in the other. I got in line with the other first graders. I was amazed looking around at all the white kids. I’d never seen so many at one time, not even on TV.
Then a boy standing in front of me on line, turned to me and blasted, “NIGGER!” right in my face. It seemed like my cheeks got hot enough to fry an egg. I didn’t exactly know what a nigger was, but I new it wasn’t good. But even if I never heard the word before, I would have known from the way the boy spat it. His face was so red, especially his cheeks, filled with red that almost matched the checks in his shirt. I liked his shirt. I like red, but not the red in his face. His blond hair was short, but stood stiff and bristle-like reaching up to the sun, which was shining bright and happy, as if it didn’t know what had just happened. As if nothing was wrong.
All around me, the rows of brightly polished shoes, continued to chatter and chirp and giggle, as if nothing was wrong. My snap on tie seemed to tighten, or was my neck swelling? I couldn’t tell. I clutched the hard plastic handle of my book bag. It was plastic, but made to look like leather, and it had my new books inside. Books in which I had only written my name, a new trick that I was very proud of.
I concentrated on the yellow lines on the gray ground, that marked off boundaries for basketball, baseball, and places to line up. I kept my eyes on my shoes. I had to concentrate. I had been trained not to cry, but it was hard for me, so I had to keep my eyes on my shoes, keep my hand gripped to my bookbag handle. Tight. Clenched. So it would hurt more than the fact that this boy didn’t like me.
The bell rang. The lines of brightly polished shoes started to move into the school. My shoes moved too. But I know that there was a piece of me that never left that schoolyard. A piece of me that remained in the sun until it dried up and died.
I wonder if that boy in the schoolyard was the son of the son of the “white man” who demanded Rosa Parks’ seat. I wonder if he grew up to infect his own children. I wonder if they went on to destroy small pieces of Black boys in brightly polished shoes...
