ROSA PARKS GETS CAPITOL HONOR

trailblazers
I just learned that Rosa Parks' body will lie in state under the Capitol Dome in Washington D.C.

This is remarkable for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is: she is the first woman and first second African American accorded this honor. Provided, it's only happened 29 times, but damn, in the 151 years since they started doing this, you'd think they would have managed to find other women or Black persons to honor this way. It's pretty startling to see J. Edgar Hoover but not Martin Luther King, Jr.

In any case, this is obviously a major honor to pay, though the cynic realist in me wants to point out that Parks dedicated her life to racial and social justice and while the U.S. government is taking an extraordinary step to honor her legacy, maybe they could actually be doing more to see that her life's work wasn't in vain. Junichi already noted this in an earlier post but seriously, I think many would agree that while overt racism - the kind that forces people to the back of the bus - has become illegal, de facto racism is as profoundly a part of American society as it ever was. The danger with all the accolades being showered on Parks is if it builds in a complacency or belief that the need for a civil rights movement ended with her and the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

--O.W.