Rosa Parks Direct Quotes

This “schizoid” collective brain cannot act, only react blindly and in misaligned ways to a barrage of stimuli, mostly out of fear and anger. That’s bad news for sustained refusal. While it may seem at first like refusal is a reaction, the decision to actually refuse—not once, not twice, but perpetually until things have changed—means the development of and adherence to individual and collective commitments from which our actions proceed. In the history of activism, even things that seemed like reactions were often planned actions. For example, as William T. Martin Riches reminds us in his accounting of the Montgomery bus boycott, Rosa Parks was “acting, not reacting” when she refused to get up from her seat. She was already involved with activist organizations, having been trained at the Highlander Folk School, which produced many important figures in the movement.40 The actual play-by-play of the bus boycott is a reminder that meaningful acts of refusal have come not directly from fear, anger, and hysteria, but rather from the clarity and attention that makes organizing possible.

Now in fact, some of our transformative leaders in history have been introverts. I'll give you some examples. Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, Gandhi -- all these peopled described themselves as quiet and soft-spoken and even shy. And they all took the spotlight, even though every bone in their bodies was telling them not to. And this turns out to have a special power all its own, because people could feel that these leaders were at the helm not because they enjoyed directing others and not out of the pleasure of being looked at; they were there because they had no choice, because they were driven to do what they thought was right.

Political protest is a form of expression, done specifically so as to be seen by an audience—such as the general public or politicians in power—with the hope of convincing that audience to share the protesters’ viewpoint and maybe act on their behalf. Direct action is also political, but avoids the “middleperson”; it is instead an action done to directly pursue a concrete goal, such as acquiring food with which to feed oneself. Holding a sign that criticizes Jim Crow laws is political protest; refusing to get off the bus or move to the back when ordered to is direct action—as, Robin D.G. Kelley points out in Race Rebels, hundreds of individuals in the South were doing before Rosa Parks, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People successfully turned the act into an organized, political tactic. Tea Partiers and conservatives who wave “Don’t Tread on Me” flags are engaging in political protest; those who buy their own land and arm themselves to protect it are engaging in direct action