The Black American Princess

Sep. 15, 2012 at 5:07pm with 8,267 notes

Reblogged from black-culture

brwn-skn-ladi:

theafrosistuh:

iknowdispussybeyankin:

interesting-fact:
Claudette Colvin resisted bus segregation nine months before Rosa Parks, and it is her case that went to the Supreme Court — only for her to be swept under the rug by NAACP leaders since she was a pregnant teenager. - http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101719889
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And because she was too dark …

YES!!!!! Thank you!!! I’m so glad this is going around!

Many of the litigants and representatives of the Civil Rights Movement were carefully chosen—that’s because they understood how the law and the real world works. Rosa Parks was promoted primarily because she was well-connected, older, and yes considered “more respectable” but that doesn’t change Colvin’s significant contribution to the movement. And Colvin’s contribution doesn’t minimize Parks’ contribution. It’s easy to simplify or judge the decisions with the privilege of 20/20 hindsight. At the end of the day, it wasn’t just about Colvin, it was about a whole race of people (races of people) who were fighting to be recognized as equals. It’s cool to sit here in 2012 and pretend that Colvin’s case would have been received sympathetically in the 1950s as the face of the bus segregation movement. Yet, just four years ago most of us were pointing to the hypocrisy of the Republican Party’s acceptance of unwed, pregnant teen Bristol Palin, knowing full well that if it were Malia Obama it would have ended Pres. Obama’s election. That conversation happened four years ago…These decisions aren’t made in a vacuum. They reflect the reality of the times. If you are going to criticize these choices you also need to acknowledge and criticize the society that made them necessary. Things aren’t as simple as we sometimes make them out to be.

The bolded.

theafrosistuh:

iknowdispussybeyankin:

interesting-fact:

Claudette Colvin resisted bus segregation nine months before Rosa Parks, and it is her case that went to the Supreme Court — only for her to be swept under the rug by NAACP leaders since she was a pregnant teenager. - http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101719889
—

Interesting Facts - Like Us on Facebook!

And because she was too dark …

YES!!!!! Thank you!!! I’m so glad this is going around!

Many of the litigants and representatives of the Civil Rights Movement were carefully chosen—that’s because they understood how the law and the real world works. Rosa Parks was promoted primarily because she was well-connected, older, and yes considered “more respectable” but that doesn’t change Colvin’s significant contribution to the movement. And Colvin’s contribution doesn’t minimize Parks’ contribution. It’s easy to simplify or judge the decisions with the privilege of 20/20 hindsight. At the end of the day, it wasn’t just about Colvin, it was about a whole race of people (races of people) who were fighting to be recognized as equals. It’s cool to sit here in 2012 and pretend that Colvin’s case would have been received sympathetically in the 1950s as the face of the bus segregation movement. Yet, just four years ago most of us were pointing to the hypocrisy of the Republican Party’s acceptance of unwed, pregnant teen Bristol Palin, knowing full well that if it were Malia Obama it would have ended Pres. Obama’s election. That conversation happened four years ago…These decisions aren’t made in a vacuum. They reflect the reality of the times. If you are going to criticize these choices you also need to acknowledge and criticize the society that made them necessary. Things aren’t as simple as we sometimes make them out to be.