I just stumbled upon a fascinating piece of Americana/Pop Culture on YouTube. It's a rather astounding appearance by Rosa Parks from 1980, 25 years after she became a hero of the Civil Rights movement.
The clip really says it all and I encourage you to watch it. For those of you too young to remember, the premise of To Tell the Truth was to have three contestants come out and answer questions from a pane of B-list celebrities. One was obligated to tell the truth, and the other two were imposters. Here we have three African American women of a certain age, each claiming to be Rosa Parks.
The panel includes Nipsey Russell, who speaks quite sincerely from personal experience. The other person who impressed me was Gordon Jump, best known for his role on WKRP in Cinncinati. He always seemed like a nice man and here he is humbled in exactly the way that I think I would be in the presence of Mrs. Parks.
I don't diary here often but this is the second time I've written about Rosa Parks on the anniversary of her bold act against segregation. Let me take this chance to repeat an idea that I wish would catch on. Every year on December first, a seat in the first row of every bus and every train should be left empty, with a sash to remember what she did for this country. Because we can not take for granted what she and the rest of that movement did for all of us. Nipsey says it best at the end of his comments. She's ten feet tall and a hero of American democracy.
Enjoy the clip. Rosa Parks on To Tell the Truth
Diary is cross-posted on my blog, spiderstumbled.blogspot.com