The Kokomo Tribune from Kokomo, Indiana • Page 64

Rosa Parks looks back on the day she refused to give up her seat on a bus and unleashed a movement that rocked the country 'I Wanted To Be Treated Like A Human Bein Marie Ragghianri knows about risk-taking. In 1977, as chairman of Tennessee's Board of Pardons and Paroles, she exposed corruption in the administration ofGov. Ray Blanton. The federal investigation she set off left that administration in disarray and made her the heroine of Peter Maas' best- selling book "Marie: A True Story." The daughter of parents who were both active in the struggle for rights for blacks in the South, Marie grew up revering Rosa Parks, whose act of personal courage had sparked the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s. Ragghianti recently went in search of the real person behind the heroine of her youth and to hear from Rosa Parks herself what had happened on that day in 1955.

I FIRST MET ROSA PARKS IN NEW York City in 1986 at a high-powered gathering of feminist and political leaders. My impression remains vivid. She was poised, even regal, yet there was a distinct modesty and an aura of spirituality about her. Thirty-six years ago, on a bus in Montgomery, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man, defying a Southern tradition of decades. To appreciate that act we have to remember that the mid-1950s were a time when the Ku Klux Klan was in its heyday, when the 1954 Supreme Court ruling against segregation in the schools had fanned the bigotry of white supremacists, and when lynch- ings of blacks in the Deep South were being widely reported.

If the precise moment of the birth of the Civil Rights movement can be isolated, it a may be said that it was froml this one woman's singular, ir-i reducible act of courage. As an adolescent, my ful idealism had been fired when I read about Rosa Parks. Our brief introduction that evening in 1986 rekindled my imagination: Who was Rosa Parks, really? Who was she then? Who is she now? How could someone so apparently shy have been bold enough to challenge a whole system embedded in racism? Was she a Rosa Parks with participants of the Reverse Freedom Tour, which educates youths about Civil (fights history. Left Being fingerprinted after arrest in 1955. "When the policemen came on the bus, the driver pointed to me and said, 'That one won't stand I asked, 'Why do you treat us this figurehead for the Civil Rights as some have argued, only a plant for the NAACP, someone whose act was part of a master plan designed to foster a call for the desegregation of public transportation? Or was she the authentic heroine of my youth? I wanted to find out for myself.

My search finally ended late last year in Detroit. It had not been easy to find her, and it was even harder to fit into her schedule. At the age of 78, Rosa Parks maintains a level of activity that would daunt someone half her age. We met outside a church where she was appearing, and the voices of children filled the air. I was struck by the curious blend of seeming contradictions that she presented.

She is grandmotherly in appearance, her hair a silvery crown, yet she retains the grace of a young woman. Rather than the imposing physical presence that one might expect, she is petite and slim. And she is soft-spoken that one must lean toward her to hear her words. I asked her about that fateful day, a Thursday. Had she known when she got up that morning what lay ahead? Had there been a plan? "I wasn't planning to be arrested at all," she said.

"I would rather not have been arrested, of course. I had a full weekend planned. It was December, Christmastime. It was the busy time of year was a tailor's assistant in a men's clothing store in Montgomery and secretary of the city's branch of the and I was preparing for the weekend workshop for the Youth Council." She turned slightly, and an almost wistful expression crossed her face. Then, I was startled by a revelation that she offered almost offhandedly.

Suddenly, she was talking about another day, another time, another the same driver. "The same driver, back in 1943, had evicted me from the bus," she said. "It was not about a seat that time. He wanted me to get off the bus and go around and get back on. I wouldn't do it." In those days in the South, black people were expected to board the front of the bus, pay their fare, then get off and walk outside BY MARIE RAGGHIANTI PAGE 20 JANUARY 19,1992 PARADE MAGAZINE.