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Rosa’s Poems and Stories Reimagined for Boys and Girls
Rosa Parks: Her Early Life and Childhood Reimagined
Rosa’s Magic Farm Adventures
Babysitting two young boys is not always fun. That is what young Rosa Louis McCauley found out when she was babysitting her brother and cousin. That’s way before Rosa’s name would be changed to Rosa Parks after meeting her husband. That’s way before she would be known for disobeying or violating an unjust law. That’s way before she would set foot on the magic bus. That’s way before the bus driver would ask her to give up her front seat to the white passengers. That’s way before she would stand up for her civil rights on the bus despite her fear.
“No, I will not give up my seat. I am a 42-year-old lady. I am exhausted after a long day of work as a seamstress,” she replied to the towering and threatening bus driver who started counting on his fingers loudly.
“One, two, three…Woman, I do not care about how tired you are. The law is the law. You are violating a city ordinance. You and other black passengers must give up your front seats to white passengers,” the bus driver argued as he threatened to call the police. He could not back down because the waiting white passengers were backing him up.
The passengers were furious and did not have any more patience to put up with this black woman’s resistance and shenanigan. They were getting in her face. They were frowning at her. Rosa kept looking in the distance and shutting them all out of her ears. She appeared calm despite the cauldron of hot emotions and stares that were directed at her.
Quietly, the black passengers standing in the back of the bus were rejoicing. They could not show their pleasure in witnessing this huge, sudden change. One of the second-class citizens who looked like the rest of them, one of the ‘lowlies’ finally decided to stand up to the powerful first-class citizens on that bus. Yet, they were also asking what would end up happening to this frail woman. They had a huge thump in their chest. They did not want to be arrested for being accomplices to that act of public disobedience. They did not want to get kicked off the bus. They wanted to get back home to cook for their children and family. Many of them could not afford to go to jail. Neither could they afford to lose their job in the city. So they kept quiet. Yet, they were learning that the unjust system of segregation could somehow be broken if it was challenged by more little ladies such as that passenger. They could not wait to get back home to tell their families and neighbors about what they had witnessed. They have long known that it was morally wrong to treat one group better than the others. They were convinced that many knocks at the segregation system would create a huge whole some day. They were fed up with the Jim Crow policies. On that specific day, on December 1, 1955, they were watching history in the making. They were watching a seamstress, - not a lawyer, a professional, a pastor - take the leadership to change the status quo. Those black passengers kept their eyes on that woman too. They kept their eyes on the final grand prize.
“I am not budging. Once again, I am a southern lady. Those white male passengers should know better.”
“I do not care about you being a lady. Who made you a southern lady? I am here to enforce the law. I am here to tell you that you should move your black self to the back of the bus where your kind usually rides my bus,” said a furious bus driver, clearly frustrated by that woman’s calm under fire.
“A southern lady does not have to stoop this low, go down to your level of depravity to make herself understood. I am staying put. Now get back to your job. Drive us away. The white males and southern white ladies will understand that a southern lady should not be treated this way. Now have the decency to treat me like you would have treated your own mother,” said Rosa Parks, clutching her purse, filled with ladies’ beauty products, old bus passes, and reading materials.
Unable to change that resolute black woman’s mind and send her to the back of the bus, bus driver, James F. Blake, was not ready for this kind of challenge to his authority. He was a white male bus driver backed by the segregation laws of Alabama, Mississippi. He decided to resort to brute forces. He got off the bus to look for a phone to call the local police.
Rosa Parks remained seated on the bus. She knew what was coming her way. She knew that beatings, water hoses, and unleashed dogs were often used against people who looked like her. She also knew that she could not take it one more day. She knew that the daily humiliations would have to end some day. She was willing to sacrifice her own freedom to provoke those changes in Alabama. In her heart, she was saying “Down with separate fountains! Down with separate restaurants! Down with separate restrooms! Down with separate with Whites Only signs! Down with Colored signs! Down with giving my seat to a white passenger! Down with all the things, laws, and people that separate us! Down with separate school buses for our children! Down with a separate but ‘equal’ education system! “ She knew there was nothing equal about a system that separated its citizens.
Rosa Louise McCauley Parks stood up to the unjust laws represented and defended by James F. Blake, the driver of that bus on that fateful day. And the rest was history.