A Royal Act of Defiance: Claim Your Seat!

Tuesday, December 1, 2015 marked the 60th anniversary of Rosa Parks' royal act of defiance when she refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama.  This act sparked the Montgomery bus boycott, during which black protesters boycotted riding Montgomery buses for 381 days, beginning 4 days after Rosa refused to move.  Initial reports and school history books have noted that Rosa was simply tired and didn't want to give up her seat due to her extreme fatigue.  Parks was later quoted as saying "The only tired I was, was tired of giving in".  The white-washed portion of this story has since been debunked and we have moved to understand that the entire effort was a part of a coordinated aspect of the protests against segregation during the era.  

However, one must wonder if Rosa claiming her seat is representative to the actions across the nation that we are seeing today.  All over the United States, young black people are theoretically "claiming their seat" as Americans, protesting against prejudice, injustices, and institutionalized racism.  Students at universities across America are taking a stand against the systemic racism that presents itself everyday at their institutions by leading the charges to rid campuses of their negligent Presidents and demanding diversity reform.  Community members and groups are taking unified efforts to fight police brutality, which disproportionately affects black people.  Parents are leading charges to keep their children safe from racism, turmoil, and unnecessary adversity in the classroom.  

So, I say to you today, Claim Your Seat!  It was individuals like Rosa Parks who forced a different narrative.  Individuals who planned an act of defiance that would bring benefit to their people in the long run.  Rosa claimed her seat in 1955.  Here we are, 60 years later, and black people can sit anywhere they'd like while riding public transportation.  Imagine what the effect your activism and royal acts of defiance may have on generations to come in 60 years because you made the sacrifice to claim your seat.  Really, that's what it is, isn't it?  A sacrifice?  A sacrifice to challenge all societal norms and white supremacist ideals, knowing that you may be ridiculed by society and, possibly, by your own people.  Defiance entails going against the grain, pushing against a familiar or normalized narrative that has been drilled into you since birth.  It is not comfortable, nor is it glamorous.  Hence the sacrifice required to engage in such an act. 

Claim Your Seat! We need you!

Source for Information:

http://www.vox.com/2015/12/2/9834798/rosa-parks-tired-civil-rights

http://www.biography.com/people/rosa-parks-9433715

http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/montgomery-bus-boycott