Question:  What do February 4th and December 1st have in common?  Answer: They are both called Rosa Parks Day, commemorated in the states of California and Ohio.  February 4, 1913 is her birthday and December 1, 1955 is the day she was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama for  refusing to obey a bus driver’s orders to give up her seat in the colored section of the bus to a white passenger, after the white section was filled.   In her recounting that day, she said the driver James Blake said, “Y’all better make it light on yourselves and let me have those seats.”  Three of them complied but Rosa said. “The driver wanted us to stand up, the four of us.  We didn’t move at the beginning, but he says, “Let me have these seats.’ And the three other men moved, but I didn’t.”  Rosa then moved toward the window seat, but did not move to the re-designated colored section.  Blake pressed her further to stand up but she   refused and he called the police to have her arrested.   During an interview, several months after her arrest, Parks said she had decided she would have to know once and for all what rights she had as a human being and a citizen.  Many people say that she was merely too tired from  working all day and standing on her feet to give up her seat, but that wasn’t true.  She claims that she wasn’t any more tired that day than she normally was, nor was she an old woman, after all she was only 42.

Read the article in its entirety in the May 2014

Bevil newsletter, which accompanies the cover.