11.05.2005

Rosa and the conspiracy of justice.

As my friend Black Bloggah pointed out recently, Rosa Parks did not act alone, nor was her resistance the spontaneous act of a fed-up woman: she, like many civil rights activists, trained in civil disobedience practices at places like the Highlander Center in the Great Smoky Mountains. The Smoking Gun posts a collection of mug shots found last year in the storage room of an Alabama sheriff's office. Most are booking photos from arrests made during the 1956 Montgomery bus boycott. Click through them and see the ministers and lay people, men and women—of whom Rosa Parks was just one—who did what they had to in the name of justice. I love the looks on some of their faces, a mix of defiance and pride (with a little bemusement thrown in): this is what it looks like to stand for something.

Pictured, top to bottom: C.W. Lee, Jo Ann Robinson, Mrs. A.W. West, Sr., Rev. J.W. Bonner

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