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The Complex Legacy of Rosa Parks, Part One
Okay, I know that it’s not Black History Month, but the way that Rosa Parks’ contribution to the advancement of Black people’s rights in America continues to get on my last good nerve. Rosa Parks has a complex legacy with many different facets that we fail to explore and teach.
For the sake of transparency, let me be clear: I DESPISE MOST METANARRATIVES. A metanarrative is the way we collectively agree to tell the story. I hate metanarratives because they can be awfully reductionist. For example, Muhammad Ali has been reduced to one image. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. has been reduced to one quote. Metanarratives lull us into complacency. When we continue to teach metanarratives, we cease to research what are often complex stories/personalities/events. We think we know it all, and as it turns out, we know almost nothing at all!
One of the metanarratives that we love is this image of Rosa Parks as the “Mother of the Civil Rights Movement.” Come on, Reader, you know the story. Rosa Parks was a respectable, middle-aged seamstress who was tired when she got on a segregated bus. The bus driver told Parks to move and let a white person have her seat, but she refused. Parks was put in jail for defying the law and the Montgomery Bus Boycott began. From that boycott, a young minister, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., rose to prominence.