Rise of a civil rights heroine
QUESTION Rosa Parks is often portrayed as an accidental figure in the civil rights movement. Is this view incorrect? The bus boycott, in which African-Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest against segregated seating, took place between December 5, 1955, and December 20, 1956. It is seen as the first large demonstration against segregation in the U.S.
This famous act of defiance was sparked by Rosa Parks (1913-2005), an African-American arrested for refusing to surrender her seat to a white person. Most descriptions suggest Parks was an ordinary woman, simply worn down by years of racism. In Great African Americans In Civil Rights by Pat Rediger writes: ‘On that famous day when she was arrested, it would have been much easier for Rosa to give up her seat. Three other black women (actually two women and a man) who were sitting beside her did. She could have avoided being arrested, fingerprinted and sent to jail. But Rosa was tired. her back was sore from pressing pants all day at work and she was tired of racism.’
The story was more complex: Rosa Parks was already involved in the civil rights movement, and in 1943 she was elected Montgomery branch secretary of The National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP). As part of her duties, she travelled around the South documenting and investigating sexual crimes against black women.
In March 1955, 15-year- old Claudette Colvin refused to give up her bus seat to a white person. She was dragged off the bus and arrested, but as an unmarried teen mother wasn’t considered suitable to front the movement against bus segregation.
When Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat, she immediately called prominent black leader e. D. Nixon (1899-1987). he bailed her out of jail and determined that she would be a sympathetic plaintiff in a legal challenge to the segregation ordinance.
The Women’s Political Council (WPC) circulated thousands of flyers calling for a boycott of the bus system on December 5, the day Parks would be tried. Black ministers including Martin Luther King, announced the boycott in church on Sunday, December 4, and the Montgomery Advertiser published a front-page article on the planned action. About 40,000 African-American bus passengers — the majority of the city’s black bus users— joined the boycott the following day.
Caroline Connor, St Andrews, Fife. QUESTION Can a Welshman still be hanged from a tree if caught in Chester after dark? IN 1403, Sir henry ‘ hotspur’ Percy, formerly justice of Chester, stayed in the city and raised the standard of revolt. Despite being a former adversary of the rebellious Welsh Prince Owain Glyndwr, he formed an alliance with him against henry IV and hotspur met the king at the Battle of Shrewsbury.
In a closely fought encounter, hotspur was killed, apparently shot in the face when he opened his visor, and the battle came to an abrupt end. To quash rumours that he had survived, the King had hotspur quartered and the parts put on display. his head was impaled on York’s north gate and one quarter was sent to Chester with the heads of Sir Richard Venables and Sir Richard Vernon.
Glyndwr hadn’t arrived in time to join the Battle of Shrewsbury and continued to harry the border counties of Shropshire and Cheshire, with Chester considered particularly vulnerable to his attacks. The King’s fears were demonstrated in the instructions issued in response to defections to North Wales in the weeks after the battle.
Chester was required to impose a curfew on all Welshmen visiting the city to ensure that they left their arms at the city gates and didn’t gather in groups of more than three. All Welsh residents were expelled and any who stayed overnight were threatened with execution. The measures, though, were temporary, and there is no record of any execution.
In 1404, the government still found it necessary to order citizens not to sell arms or merchandise to the rebels, but as the Welsh revolt crumbled, a steady stream of prominent local Welshmen made their way to the castle to submit to the english authorities. By 1408, Chester even had a Welsh mayor, though in 1409 the Crown nominated a governor temporarily to replace him following concerns about his allegiance.
Despite the facts, the story has remained remarkably persistent. When Coronation Street actor Adam Rickitt made an unsuccessful attempt to become Chester’s Tory election candidate in 2006, he promised if elected to repeal a law that didn’t actually exist.
Gareth Moore, Chester. QUESTION Have Biblical scholars ever speculated about Jesus Christ’s ‘missing years’, namely those from his interest in religion as a boy to the start of his three-year ministry? FURTHER to the earlier answer, despite speculation that he was taken to India, there is no firm evidence for these claims.
The most likely scenario is that when he became 16, the law required his parents to place him in a recognised place of learning, and he was sent to study at Qumran, the home of a devout Jewish sect known as the essenes.
The Qumran Dead Sea Scroll, known as the Community Rule, states that at 20, students had to undergo an examination and only then became fully qualified. At 30 they were baptised into full membership, the minimum age for a novice to attain his full accreditation.
This was exactly the same age as the Gospel of Luke (3:23) tells us Jesus commenced his ministry. By the time he reached the age of 30, he would have been fully schooled in the teachings of the Qumran- essenes and entitled to be addressed as ‘Master’.
So it’s not surprising that so many of the quotations of Jesus in the New Testament reflect unique and sometimes secret texts of the Qumran-essenes. These must have come from someone who was highly learned in essene teachings, which incorporated an apocalyptic world view, dualism, predestination, meekness, inner holiness, concept of the holy spirit, distain for personal possession and celibacy.
These beliefs were not apparent in the general Jewish population and seem to confirm Jesus was brought up in an isolated Jewish environment. even Pope Benedict XVI expressed the view that Jesus celebrated the Last Supper according to essene rites. Robert Feather, author The Secret Initiation
of Jesus At Qumran, London.
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