ROSA PARKS AND THE DREAM

I dreamed of Rosa Parks last night.  She was sitting in a seat in the middle of a bus with Black men sitting on both sides of her.  I figured they were bodyguards and had joined her after news got out that this 'uppity Black woman' had dared to take her place amongst the Whites.

The days of sitting in the back of the bus were over for her.  She worked long, hard days at low wages for a white family and had to take a bus every...damn...day.  Her great-grandparents had been slaves.  Enough was enough.  

She felt she earned something more than a seat at the back of the bus.  

She didn't know that this small act would set up a firestorm of millions of people being emboldened by her.  More and more people began speaking out, demonstrating, and even rioting to bring civil rights to the forefront.  The battle continued until, at last, civil rights passed.  Racism became somewhat more subtle over 50 years.

But the Rosa Parks I saw in my dreams is still in that seat.  She's there until young white men aren't rioting in the streets and screaming "blood and soil," which was used by the Nazis to proclaim themselves as a superior race.  She's there until Blacks aren't targeted by racists, whether the racist is dressed as a policeman, as a church-going, Bible-thumping White person, or as a President.  

She'll stay there until every last symbol of oppression is gone.  It matters not that this scares the young white men because they may no longer be born automatically privileged. One day, they might not get preferential treatment for jobs. The color of their skin might no longer give them an automatic pass.

As I stand there absorbing this scene of Rosa Parks and the men sitting around her, I see a faint image of someone familiar.

Jesus is sitting in the back of the bus.