Rosa Parks, given her humble and gracious disposition, would probably reject the label, "Mother of the Civil Rights Movement." With a profound respect for history, she was acutely aware that the movement for human and civil rights existed well before her birth in 1913. She understood that she was part of the ongoing struggle for human progress, which echoed from the days of Frederick Douglass, who died in 1895, just 18 years before her birth. "There had been others who had been humiliated on the buses before. She was not the first, but when she was thrown in jail it said to all of Montgomery that none of us is safe. It was the purity of her character that galvanized the movement." (West, 2005). She was a true hero and people believed in her, so many people of her kind were been disgraced but they couldn’t do anything about, it was probably not her first time of being humiliated but when she noticed how it became fatal, she decided to take a courageous step.
“Rosa Parks really tries my patience. She’s been set up as the greatest person in America, an untouchable icon. She’s probably the number one living person about whom even almost joking is unacceptable. Indeed, she insists on this point. Negro, puh-lease. In this country, no one is sacrosanct. We’re all equal, remember?” (Gadfly, 2013) With the fact that she took a very courageous step and helped to stop the bus segregation, so many people still dislike and hate her. I don’t blame them because no matter how good and wonderful someone is, people will still criticize them. In any case there was a number of events that I ,can point to as the start of the Civil Rights era. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was certainly one of them. Thanks to Mrs. Parks and others, black Americans are surely better off today. It's unfortunate that many people fail to see that. And that we'll use the activities of the past as an excuse.