Rest in peace Sister Rosa

Just the other day, as I was surfing the Internet I came across a headline on a search engine. It read, ‘Rosa Parks dies at 92.’
After reading the article, I began to think about how hard black people like Parks fought to ensure that blacks were given civil rights. I thought about how back then, it meant something to be black. It meant you were proactive, hardworking and dedicated to the struggle.
I thought about how today, many of us take all of those things for granted. From my own observations, it seems that blacks today are apathetic; not just about civil rights but about nearly everything.
It seems as though we as a people have become complacent. It’s almost as if we have established a comfort zone and we are fine with where we are.
I’m not though and neither was Harriet Tubman, W.E.B. Dubois, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr. or Rosa Parks, just to name a few.
I couldn’t help but think that what if these people had been fine with where they were? What if they too, had been apathetic and complacent? Had they, would we still be out in fields pricking our fingers as the sun beamed down on our backs while we picked the white man’s cotton?
We would still be considered two-thirds of a citizen. We would still be owned as property-bought, sold and traded on the slave market. We would still be unable to vote; to voice our concerns and elect our leaders.
I have often wondered why we aren’t as proactive as our ancestors. Why can’t we as a whole choose to work for one another rather than working against each other? I’ve wondered why we can’t unite, not even for our own sakes.
Rosa Parks was one person. That one person, not only being physically tired from work but mentally tired from the racial injustices that plagued her and every black person living, particularly in the south, birthed a movement.
That one person helped make Thomas Jefferson’s words, “We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equated,” apply to the black race.
That one person inspired blacks from all over the country to stand up and say, “Enough is enough.”
Why then, can’t we as whole — as a people — stand up now to the ethnocentric attitudes of white America?
Why can’t we protest and demonstrate until there is more than just one black Supreme Court justice and more than one top-ranking White House official who happens to be black?
Why can’t we, I mean all black people, march and raise hell until we have a black person take the helm of the world’s greatest economic power? Why, in spite of the efforts of our ancestors do we still sit in the back of the buses and in the back of the classrooms?
Why do we not vote and take an interest in the government and its policies? Why do we succumb to the stereotypes of which we have been accused? When will we stand up and take our place at the front?
This country was built on the backs of black people. It was their hard labor, sweat, blood and tears that made the greatest contribution to the development of this country’s economy, but yet we still choose to stand behind the scenes and allow ourselves to be the silent minority.
We still choose to be seen and not heard. Rosa Parks is gone, but her legacy and the legacy of those before her should still be prevalent enough in our hearts and our minds to stand up, take a look and think long and hard if this is where we really want to be.
I challenge every black woman and man; boy and girl; Christian and non-Christian, rich and poor to search deeply within themselves and come to terms with who they are, what they represent, and what that means.
From where I sit, there’s nothing more beautiful than black and Sister Rosa you have opened my eyes. Rest in peace, because what you’ve symbolized will never die.