THE GODDESS PROJECT: Made in Her Image
HERstory Changers Series
ROSA PARKS
“One evening in early December 1955 I was sitting in the front seat of the colored section of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. The white people were sitting in the white section. When that happened, we black people were supposed to give up our seats to the whites.
But I didn’t move.
The white driver said, ‘Let me have those seats.’
I didn’t get up. I was tired of giving in to white people.
‘I’m going to have you arrested,’ the driver said.
‘You may do that’, I answered.
Two white policemen came. I asked one of them, ‘Why do you all push us around?’
He answered, ‘I don’t know, but the law is the law and you’re under arrest.’ “
– Rosa Parks in “Rosa Parks: My Story”
Never doubt that ONE SMALL ACT of valiance can change the course of history (HERstory.) Rosa Parks grew up on a plantation, as a great grandchild of freed slaves in a COMPLETELY SEGREGATED and dangerous world. She picked cotton, barefoot, with her family 7 months out of the year and Rosa gladly went to school the other 5. Her mom was an out of town school teacher who taught petite, sickly Rosa how to read by age 3. Rosa LOVED to read and learn.
In her book, “Rosa Parks: My Story”, Rosa writes that Southern girls (both African-American and Anglo) DID NOT go to school past the 6th grade in those days. Rosa eventually GRADUATED from high school but still had to work as a seamstress or secretary she also worked unpaid as the Secretary of the Montgomery NAACP.
The bus incident was not Rosa’s first stand against injustice but was the catalyst for the entire CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT. Growing up, her grandfather sat by the front door with a shot gun at night in case the Ku Klux Klan chose THEIR house that night to burn down, murdering the whole family. Rosa wrote that it was common in those days to hear that they’d found yet another “dead black person’s body”.
When she would walk to school, Rosa Parks wrote that the bus with the white kids would drive by and they’d throw trash at them. (The “white” school was brick with glass windows and paid for by all the ethnicities’ taxes yet the African Americans had to build their own schools themselves out of found wood, no windows or desks.)
One day an Anglo (white) little boy threatened to hit Rosa and she picked up a brick and told him to go ahead and try. She was reprimanded by both that boys’ mother as well as her own family, told never to speak that way to “white” people.
But she always stood up for what was right and questioned unjust laws and unkindness. Like the Goddess Herself, She will endure just so much, biding Her time for the perfect educational moment of redemption. Rosa acted as the Divine Mother that day and ROSE UP in her power and and stopped the ridiculousness of such elitist rules.
ROSA CHANGED EVERYTHING. She challenged and educated people about ignorant laws made by ignorant people. Her subtle yet heroic choice of defiance (that she knew could have easily have cost her her life) changed the course of history. Rosa Parks on Dec. 1, 1955 catapulted the world into a new era in which segregation became (nearly) extinct. Although we still are not completely finished with the integration of equality mindsets, look how far we’ve come. BECAUSE OF ROSA.
What injustices do you see in the world and what are you going to do about it?
Rosa Parks was named after her grandmother Rose. (Rose is the sacred symbol of the Divine Feminine in the West!). Our Goddess Project model for Rosa Park is ALSO named Rosa and our Rosa was named after HER grandmother ROSA. What our Rosa had to say about portraying Rosa Parks:
“How sweet of an opportunity it is to portray (on any platform) such a monumental piece of our beloved and gruesome history. As daunting of a task as this is to me, because these are such huge shoes to fill (even if just posing for a simple picture), I’m sure it doesn’t compare to the role Rosa played in reshaping the narrative of the civil rights movement of the 50’s and 60’s, and ultimately segregation in America.
As I go out to the polls and vote for my respective candidates, I can’t help being forced to carefully consider all who are affected by the very policies and bills put in place that so many can and will benefit from, but also those whose lives will be heavily impacted as a result of the choices we the people make that drive the direction of our communities, our states, and our country.
Though I don’t necessarily feel like my calling is to follow directly in Rosa’s footsteps just because our names are identical and were acquired in the same manner, I do feel it is no coincidence that the very sense of world changing power and strength to carry out these duties that resides in me, is the very same power that was channeled in Ms. Parks on that day she mustered up the courage to take a stand and say no with no clue of her consequences, but also the impact such a small act would have on the world. A simple act that would mold and forever change the definition of not only the Black Woman, but the Woman.”
Rosa also portrayed our Goddess Project Selket:
Special thanks to Kristen McCarthy, Ken Steubing and Allen ISD for letting us borrow a school bus! 🌹 Photo enhancement also by Goddess (super) model, Rosa. 🌹
