Boy Scout Troop 325
Scoutmaster Minute
One Person
November 1, 2005
Larry Polyak, Scoutmaster

Last week, a 92 year old woman named Rosa Parks passed away. You may have heard about her in the news. She was born in 1913 in Alabama and grew up during a time and place in our country where black and white people were kept segregated. No where was segregation more prevalent than on the city busses in Alabama. Black people had to enter the front of the bus, pay their fare, then get off the bus to enter in the back door and sit in the back. If a white person were to want a black's seat, the law said they had to stand up and let the white person sit down.

Mrs. Parks was more educated than most during that time, she finished high school and attended the Alabama State Teachers College. She and her husband were members of the NAACP and worked quietly for many years trying to improve the quality of life for black citizens. There were many cases of abuse but they could not seem to make much progress. She had recalled one day in 1943 when the bus she was entering had a line of people waiting to get in the back door so after paying her fare, the entered the bus in the front. The bus driver threw her off the bus. She recognized the injustice and remembered the man's face, vowing to try and never to ride his bus again. Then on Dec 1st 1955, she was on a bus, going home from work and not paying much attention, when she and three other black passengers were told to get up out of their seats so that a white man could sit down. The others got up. It wasn't until then that she realized that the bus driver was the same man who had thrown her off the bus 12 years earlier. She had had enough. She refused to get up. The police were called, and she was arrested, and eventually convited of disorderly conduct.

A young local minister named Martin Luther King Jr. decided to take up her cause and helped her appeal her conviction all the way to the Supreme Court. The black residents of Alabama boycotted the bus lines, some carpooling and some walking as many as 5 or 6 miles each way to work. They kept up the boycott for over a year and the busses ran almost empty and were going bankrupt. Finally her conviction was overturned and the Supreme Court ruled that segregation was illegal.

Mrs. Parks became a symbol of hope and an inspiration to the entire nation. Unlike other groups whose frustration led to violence, her cause was accomplished peacefully and intelligently.

To me, the overriding message of her story is that one person CAN make a difference. Too often, we think that our opinion doesn't matter, or that "everyone else does it" or that "someone else will do it". Although you may never accomplish something that brings you national notoriety, you CAN make a difference. You can make a difference in your own life, or you can make a difference in someone else's life. But first you have to recognize and believe that. Do you believe that you can make a difference? I think you'll find that if you always do what - in your heart - you know is the right thing, you WILL make a difference.

Thank you for listening.