Agent of change

Civil rights | Before Rosa Parks was a civil-rights catalyst, she was a devoted Christian who memorized Scripture and taught Sunday school | Edward E. Plowman

The world knew Rosa Parks as a civil-rights icon: the quiet, shy, unassuming seamstress who on Dec. 1, 1955, refused to surrender her seat on a Montgomery, Ala., city bus to a white man, as local law required. Her arrest led to a 380-day bus boycott, a U.S. Supreme Court decision that desegregated public transportation in the city, mass protests that catapulted Martin Luther King Jr. to fame, and wide-ranging changes in the social order.

That part of her story most everyone seems to know. But, unknown to many, before she was a civil-rights catalyst, she was a devoted Christian who memorized Scripture and taught Sunday school. In her own words, it was her faith that sustained her and mattered most throughout her life. She was convinced that God's power and love could overcome everything, including bigotry.

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November 05, 2005, Vol. 20, No. 43

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