Common Dreams
by Niranjan Ramakrishnan

11/07/05

The Montgomery Bus Boycott continued for a year. During that time, how many senators, governors and congressmen would you suppose descended on Alabama to lend support to the boycotters? I don't know exactly, but here's my wild guess: less than the fingers on one hand. .... There is nothing less risky than praising a dead icon. There is nothing more risky than standing with a living one who, to use John Kerry's words for Rosa Parks, "speaks truth to power". .... As Congressman John Conyers of Michigan exulted at the memorial, two full planeloads of the US Congress had come to Detroit to pay tribute to Rosa Parks. Buses were missed, but planes were caught. Imagine if two planeloads of the US Congress, containing the same worthies who descended on Detroit with such alacrity, had gone to Texas this summer and camped out in the ditch outside Bush's Ranch... But Cindy Sheehan is alive and troublesome. Rosa Parks is dead and safe. Therein lies the difference...

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1105-28.htm


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp