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| Rosa Parks' mug shot in Birmingham. I echoed this quote, which she repeated often in slightly different wording, in my poem. |
On
October 24, 2005 Rosa Parks died in Detroit, Michigan at the age of
93. She was revered as the Mother of the Civil Rights Movement for
sparking the Montgomery Bus Boycott by
refusing to give her seat to a white man.
A young minister named Martin
Luther King, Jr. was selected to lead the long campaign that led to one of
the first great victories in for the Civil
Rights Movement in the South.
After
her death that year, she was widely honored including the then unheard of honor
for a woman and a private citizen who never held high civil or military office of being laid
in state in the Rotunda of the United States Capitol. Tens of thousands filed silently by her flag
draped coffin on October 31—Halloween.
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| Rosa Parks in her elder years in Detroit was much honored as the "Mother of the Civil Rights Movement." |
I
was inspired to write a poem by news coverage of the solemn event. With unwarranted
audaciousness, I chose to write in her voice.
I had recently listened to some extended interviews and could clearly
hear her soft, breathy tone and gentle Southern accent in my head. I knew then, and I know now, that there will
be some that take great offense—particularly because I have her voice comments
about crime and young men in her troubled Detroit neighborhood. But I had also heard her make similar
comments in life.
I
have read this work several times and it has appeared in this blog before. But it seems an apt moment to revisit it.
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| Tens of thousands waited in long lines to pay their respects to Rosa Parks as the laid in state in the Capital Rotunda on Halloween 2005. |
Rosa
Parks on Halloween 2005
I didn’t hold truck with Halloween.
I was a good Christian woman.
Ask anyone who ever knew me,
they will
tell you so.
Back in Detroit young fools,
with pints
and pistols
in their
back pockets
burned the
neighborhood
each
Halloween.
Hell Night they called it
and it was.
Heathen business, I say.
I passed on a few days ago.
Time had whittled me away.
Small as I was to begin with,
I had no
weight left
to tie me
to the earth.
Now I lay in a box on cold marble.
The empty dome of the Capital
pretends to
be heaven above.
A river of faces turns around me,
gawking,
weeping, murmuring.
I see them all.
Maybe those old Druids,
pagan
though they were,
were right
about the air
between the
living and the dead
being thin
this day.
More likely that Sweet Chariot
has parked
somewhere
and let me
linger a while
just so I
could see this
before
swinging low
to carry me
home.
It makes me proud alright.
I was always proud.
Humility before the Lord
may be a
virtue,
but
humility before the master
was the
lash that kept
Black folks
down.
We grew pride as a back bone.
All of this is nice enough.
But let me tell you,
since I’ve
been gone,
I’ve seen
some foolishness
and heard
plenty, too.
They talk all kinds of foolishness
about that
day in Montgomery.
All that falderal about my feet being tired.
It wasn’t my soles that ached.
It was my soul.
It wasn’t any sudden accident either.
No sir, I prayed at the AME church.
I went to the Highland School
for rabble
rousers and trouble makers.
I met with the brothers at the NAACP
who were a
little afraid
of an
uppity woman.
Another thing.
That day was not my whole life.
There were 42 years before
and fifty
more after.
There was plenty of loving and grieving,
sweat and
laughter,
and always
speaking my mind
very
plainly, thank you.
Sure, there were parades.
There were medals and speeches, too.
But there were also long lonely days.
Once, up in Detroit,
I was beat
half to death
in my own
home
by a wild
eyed thug.
He didn’t care if I was
the Mother
of Civil Rights.
He never heard of Dr. King
or the bus
boycott.
All he wanted was my Government money.
so he could
go out
and hop
himself up some more.
That a young Black man
could do
that to an old woman,
any old
woman,
near broke
my heart.
That I could step out my door
and see
copies of him
lolling on
every street corner
made me
mad.
We may have changed the world,
like they
kept saying.
We didn’t change it enough.
We didn’t keep the hope from
being
sucked out of the city.
This business in the Capital
is alright,
I suppose.
And it was nice enough to be brought
back to
Montgomery, too,
laid out in
the chapel
of my home
church.
But clearly some folks have
gone out of
their minds.
Why, in Houston the other day,
before a
World Series game,
they had
the crowd stand silent
in my
memory.
It was a sea of white faces
who paid a
seamstress’s
wages for a
month for a seat.
It seems the only Black faces
were on the
field
or roaming
the aisles
selling hot
dogs.
And, Lord, the two-faced politicians
that came
out of the woodwork!
The governor of Alabama
cried
crocodile tears
as if he
would not be
happy to
have
a White
Citizen’s Council
membership
card in his wallet
if it would
get him some votes.
Somebody roused George W. from his stupor,
told him in
short easy words
who I was,
and shoved
him out
in front of
the microphones
to eulogize
me.
He looked uncomfortable and confused.
I understand he had other things
on his
mind.
What these politicians had in mind
was patting
black folks on the head.
“See,” they say, “Mrs. Parks and Dr. King
took care
of everything.
They asked for freedom and we gave it to them
a long,
long time ago.
What more can you ask?
Now stand over there out of the way
so we can
get down to the business
of going
after real money.”
It plain tires me out.
Little children, Black and white,
who study
me in school,
do not
think the job is over.
Your own bus seat must be won every day.
And while you are at it,
have the
driver change the route.
—Patrick Mufin
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