Martin and I went to see Amy Goodman and her brother David speak at Tufts a few days ago. During her talk, Amy brought up the Rosa Parks story. Like I did in my essay on the power of small change a few weeks ago, Amy talked about the contrast between the popular imagination of Rosa Parks as an accidental hero and the reality of Rosa Parks as a lifetime activist who spent many years preparing for the moment when her small actions could make a big difference.
When we came home, Rio asked what we’d been doing, and Martin said we’d been to a talk by two writers about how to make the world a better place.
“Like Rosa Parks?” Rio said excitedly. I had no idea she had ever heard of Rosa Parks, and asked her who Rosa Parks was.
After a few sideways attempts like, “She was like Dr. King, and she did the stuff Dr. King did,” Rio launched into this explanation:
Rio has been learning about civil rights in kindergarten for awhile now, so I shouldn’t be surprised that she knows who Rosa Parks was. Sort of.
I especially love the part of Rio’s version of Rosa Parks’ story where Rosa breaks out jail by cleverly tricking the cops, calls her family for a quick getaway, and then hugs her kids and makes dinner. And then writes a series of articles which are later collected into a book, because, y’know, writing articles is what Mamas do around here, along with hugging their kids and cooking dinner.
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