Ms. Rosa Parks passed a few days ago.

I had logged on to see my work schedule and to check up on my email. It was so early in the morning and the computer screen was so bright it hurt my eyes. But there she was. A saintly innocent 92 year old woman with a childlike smile on her face. Ms. Rosa Parks is gone. I read the caption on the news and continued to read on. My first reaction is that she was home with Jesus...and He's probably letting her sit anywhere she wants and she doesn't have to get up from any of those spots if she never ever wants too. Childlike thought, but there is a file in my childhood archives dedicated to her and the impact she had on me.

It is amazing to see the process from which stories told to us as a child never escape our memory. In fact they even have the potential of making us the adults we are today. Recalling a day in Ms. Mackeys' 4th grade class, she had pulled out a book. It was Martin Luther King, Jr. month. During this season, we had always discussed history, US civil rights, and respecting one another, but this time it had a different story. Or rather an additional story that I had never heard before.

Ms. Mackey began to talk about this woman in the southern part of the U.S. She worked a long day and had to wait at the bus stop. When she got on the bus there wasn't a place for her to sit, but for one...etc. So the story continued and the shock on all of our faces soon appeared. Growing up in the Silicon Valley I've had the privledge to grow up in a racially diverse community. So the nationalities diversly represented by Ms. Mackeys' 4th grade class were in a state of sadness. Ms. Mackey was a super wise teach however, she immediately took this and opened the doors to the socially injustice still present around the world. In her story time, she had taken us to India, China, Africa, South America, and Mexico all while we had been sitting on that popular storybook rug. She told us what was happening to children and families all over the globe. Then she asked us ...

"what do you think we should do about this? "

This storybook time had been turned into a lesson premeditatively. You see she had already brought over paper and pencils for all of us. We were about to practice from what I can recall, our first civil right. The power of the written word through letters. We wrote letters to Ms. Parks, and to to people all over the world. I can't even remember what we wrote but it was the first time I thought we could make some kind of difference.

Wishing now that I still had that letter. Wondering what it had said. Wonder if Ms. Parks ever read it. Her story effected me so much that day. It will effect many in the future too. My only expression now is one of thanks and gratitude.

Thank you Ms. Parks. Rest now in peace.

Comments

Anonymous said…
fascinating! Very interesting, I am going to have review this again because I know I missed something.

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