Witnessing Rosa Parks on the Bus

Rosa Parks Sat on the Bus After a Long Journey

Martin Luther King was a student of Henry David Thoreau
who protested slavery and other unjust laws
Nobody thought that the Morehouse College student
would become a civil rights leader
Nobody thought much about Rosa Parks either
A seamstress who rode the public bus to and from her job
at a department store
Martin L. King embraced non-violence championed by Mahatma Gandhi
Rosa has long been a member of her local chapter of NAACP
Rosa refused to give up her seat. She was tired of giving in
She stared down the bus driver and the other passengers
All of them wanted her out of the prime seat. None of them was defending her
Change was about to come in the 1950s and 1960s.
Who would have thought that this single act would be
the start of the modern civil rights movement?
Everyone counts. Rosa sat so we can stand up together