February 11, 2015
The
Portland Observer Black
History Month
L AW &J USTICE
Letters Written by Rosa Parks
Collection reveals her inner struggles with racism
(CBS) -- Rosa Parks is known as
the mother of the Civil Rights move-
ment, but she is still an enigma in
many ways. A new collection of
personal items at the Library of
Congress may change that, provid-
ing crucial dimension and complex-
ity to this civil rights icon.
“I think what has happened to
Rosa Parks is something very simi-
lar to what happened to Dr. King,”
said Maricia Battle, curator of pho-
tography for the new collection. “He
was frozen in the ‘I Have a Dream’
speech. For Rosa Parks, she was
frozen for being the woman who
didn’t give up her seat.”
The new collection of 7,500 manu-
scripts and 2,500 photographs –
many of which have never been
seen by the public – opens to re-
searchers this week to coincide with
what would have been Parks’ 102nd
birthday.
In one letter, Parks describes her
historic refusal to forfeit her seat on
that Montgomery bus on December
1, 1955: “I had been pushed around
all my life and felt at this moment that
Civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks holds the hand of a well-wisher at
a 2001 ceremony honoring the 46th anniversary of her arrest for
civil disobedience, at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich.
(AP photo)
I couldn’t take it anymore,” she
In another letter, the seamstress
writes. “When I asked the police- turned activist reflects on the sys-
man why we had to be pushed temic emotional damage wrought
around? He said he didn’t know. by Jim Crow.
‘The law is the law. You are under
continued
on page 10
arrest.’ I didn’t resist.”
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