SGI Quarterly July, 2002 - Portraits of Global Citizens

A series of essays by SGI President Ikeda in which he reflects on his encounters with various world figures

There are times when a single word changes history . . . when an ordinary day takes on an eternal significance . . . and there are struggles in which a solitary individual becomes a leader who transforms the world. When Rosa Parks refused to obey the order of the bus driver to give her seat to a white passenger, and said the single word, "No," the bell of change tolled for the history of African Americans.

I first met Rosa Parks on the campus of Soka University of America (SUA) in California on January 30, 1993. I was immediately struck by her warm, motherly personality. "This must be the gentleness that charms everyone," I thought. She had a genuine smile on her lips at all times; she was humble, and yet you could see that she was a person of unbending conviction.

In a survey published in the United States in 1993, in which historians and scholars were asked to nominate who they regarded as the most influential American women of the 20th century, Rosa Parks was ranked number three. The list was topped by the First Lady and social activist Eleanor Roosevelt. However, despite her fame, Rosa Parks always remains among the ordinary people.

Rosa Parks is a living legend, widely known as "the mother of the Civil Rights movement." Her story is told in school textbooks across the United States and in many other nations around the world. Truly almost no one is ignorant of who she is and what she has done. Yet her incredible story demands to be told again.

On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, the 42-year-old Rosa Parks was returning home from her job in the tailoring section of a department store.

After boarding the bus she noticed that the driver was the same unpleasant man who had forced her off a bus on a previous occasion some 12 years earlier. That time the back of the bus had been full, so she had climbed on at the front--and for that, the driver had put her off the bus.

Whites in front, blacks in back . . . if there weren't enough seats for whites, African Americans had to give up theirs and stand. All types of discrimination designed to make African Americans feel inferior and keep them in their place were quite openly practiced at the time. This bus driver hadn't changed in 12 years. "Y'all better make it light on yourselves and let me have those seats," he now threatened. Others stood up, but she remained unmoved.

"I could not see how standing up was going to 'make it light' for me," remarks Rosa Parks in her autobiography. "The more we gave in and complied, the worse they treated us."

The tragic history of the blood and tears of thousands of her fellow African Americans was behind the determination of this lone woman who refused to move. Their ancestors had been brought to America on slave ships, treated like cattle, and had died in their thousands after great suffering. Mothers were whipped before their children's eyes, and parents watched in hopeless despair as their children were taken from them and sold. Even after slavery was abolished, African Americans were exploited and lynched and killed, almost as sport.

"I have experienced many sad events. Many, many," Rosa Parks told me. "One African American youth was arrested on the charge of raping a white woman. He was completely innocent, but he was arrested at the age of 17 . . . and was eventually executed at the age of 21."

Rosa Parks had been working with her husband, Raymond, and others to try to save such victims, but they found themselves facing a wall of racial oppression. The civil authorities, the laws, the media and the American people in general all quite blatantly trampled on the inalienable rights of their fellow human beings as if this were perfectly normal and acceptable.

Rosa Parks had had enough of the bullying. As she said, the more she endured, the harsher she was treated.

The bus driver shouted, "Aren't you going to stand up?"

"No," she replied.

"Well, I'm going to have you arrested," he declared.

"You may do that," was Rosa Parks' calm response.

A police officer arrived on the scene. When he asked why she wouldn't stand up, she asked in return, "Why do you all push us around?"

This incident set off an explosion of anger among the African American population in Montgomery, no doubt partly because of the warm regard in which Rosa Parks was held, as she had long been respected as a cheerful, warm and intelligent woman. A boycott of the bus service was organized, led by the young civil rights activist Martin Luther King. Thirty thousand African Americans who had previously patronized the buses acted in solidarity. Instead of commuting by bus, they walked or car-pooled. An African American-owned taxi company also helped commuters by reducing its fares to match those the buses charged.

Retribution was severe. Rosa Parks was besieged with threatening telephone calls. The newspapers printed false rumors, and Dr. King's home was bombed. But the people's solidarity remained unshaken, and their nonviolent movement pricked the conscience of America and the world.

One year later the Supreme Court declared segregated busing unconstitutional. From that moment, the Civil Rights movement gained tremendous momentum, surging forward in a great wave toward equal rights for African Americans.

An idea whose time has come is unstoppable. The courage of this lone woman was like a spark that set ablaze a parched field.

Dr. Martin Luther King declared:

She was anchored to that seat by the accumulated indignities of days gone by and the boundless aspirations of generations yet unborn. She was a victim of both the forces of history and the forces of destiny. She had been tracked down by the Zeitgeist--the spirit of the time.

I have heard that, prior to my meeting with Rosa Parks, many of the people around her were wary of the Japanese because of the racist remarks made by a number of our politicians. One can imagine that all sorts of movements might try to exploit her name for their causes, so she has to be very careful. These concerns completely evaporated during her visit to the SUA campus.

She arrived in the midst of the strains of "We Shall Overcome" sung by a welcoming chorus. The moment we met, we felt a spark of recognition pass between us because I, too, have spent my life working for a cause. Without words, Rosa Parks' determination, her tears and her hopes, reverberated in my own heart. She, too, said that she felt she was meeting an old friend.

On that occasion, I invited Rosa Parks to visit Japan, and she gladly accepted, flying over in May 1994. This surprised many who know her, since she had never before traveled farther than America's immediate neighbors.

During her visit to the Soka University campus in Japan, she wept as she listened to the students' chorus. She explained that it reminded her of a young Japanese woman, a survivor of the atomic bomb blast in Hiroshima, who she had once known in the United States. "That young woman liked choral singing, too," she recalled. Listening to the singing of these other young women, she was unable to hold back her tears. Such is her gentleness and sensitivity, for she always cherishes the feelings of others.

Rosa Parks related that it was her mother who raised her to be so strong: "My mother taught me self-respect. She always insisted, 'There's no law that says people have to suffer.'"

Now in her 80s, Rosa Parks nevertheless remains an untiring champion of civil rights, working to ensure equality for all people. I pray that she remains well and strong forever.