Looking through the Myth of Rosa Park's

After reading the article on Rosa Park's and through our class discussions I feel that I would much rather believe in the original story of Rosa Parks, or the myth as some would say. When I was in elementary school and we first started talking about the civil rights movement and what minorities had to go through long before I was born, everyone knew the story of Rosa Park's. A tale of great courage that an old working class black woman stood up, or should I say sat down, against the injustice that all black people had to sit in the back of the bus and decided that she was tired and she was not going to give up her seat. I was always very intrigued by this bit of history because I got the impression that this spontaneous act of civil disobediance by this one woman symbolized that all of the tired working class black people had had enough. Therefore, when I learned that Rosa Parks was actually a civil rights activist and that her stunt was pre-meditated, I was kind of disappointed. Granted it is nice to know the complete story, I find that the story I was orignally told had a larger effect on me because it was more mythical. Rosa Parks was a hero nonetheless, but when I tell my children this story I think I'll keep the myth alive.