ROSA PARKS: THE POWER OF ONE

Valediction by the

President of South Africa

Thabo Mbeki

Half a century ago, a humble but strong-willed woman of African descent

undertook a simple, inspiring act of self affirmation. She set off seismic forces which changed a country and impacted on the world’s oppressed and oppressors alike.

After a hard day’s work, this seamstress, wearying of the daily humiliation of living in a society that prided itself on racial oppression, economic exploitation and social discrimination, took a very simple stand. She decided once and for all not to acquiesce in nor to legitimize societal wrongs which denied her very humanity.

Having been brought up on the receiving end of a society based on crude racial superiority, this humble woman, tired of the deafening silence in history in the face of the horrors of lynching, racial oppression, economic exploitation and social discrimination, adamantly refused to accept laws and attitudes that had been handed down through the generations.

In a world which evaluated people on the basis of colour, this humble but honest woman could not but be aware of some existential truths: No matter what our skin colour, we all breathe the same air that none of us created; our eyes see the same sunshine, which none of us created; the rain and snow fall on us all; we all bleed a unifying red when scathed; and, in the end, we are equally vulnerable to that inescapable reality, death.

In a society in which racial superiority was – in the same way as in apartheid South Africa - held aloft as divinely ordained, this young seamstress knew for certain that we were all born equal, that we all have the unquestionable right to exist, to flourish and to prosper, that we all have the right to dignity. These things, she knew, could never be effectively challenged by any mortal.

Moreover, this far-sighted woman never doubted that, for as long as the oppressed refused to confront this rank oppression, they would continue to fuel, consciously or subconsciously, the fires of oppression. She knew that they – like others of colour and of faint heart who meekly made way for a white person in that historic bus journey so long ago – would be complicit in the violent fiction of a society that was unwilling to accept the truth.

Knowing that there was a better way, Rosa Parks took it. She led by example. In refusing to give up her seat, she most triumphantly reminded her society and her oppressors that she was as human as they:

In the spirit of the demonstrators of the South African defiance campaign, of the youth of Soweto who said NO with their bare hands, and of so many others, in South Africa and elsewhere on the globe, who fought racism and repression down the years, Rosa Parks showed the way, her way, She sat tight for dignity and decency. She showed the “power of one”. She will remain forever in our hearts.

Her simple and eloquent act of defiance on that glorious day brought with it the beginning of the end of a wretched winter of discrimination that had lasted too long, survived the Civil War and persists to this day. That one act was the harbinger of a new spring alive with the fresh possibility of freedom, a spring that would produce heroes such as the Rev Martin Luther King Jr who earned the enduring praise of the whole world.

Now that Rosa Parks has died, and the memories and challenges rush in, the question cries out for an answer- do we have the capacity, the staying power, the wisdom and the sheer grit to ensure that the time has come, in global terms, for the powerful idea for which she stood?

As we salute her, and mourn her death after such a sparkling and full life, we must take the baton from her frail hand and, tearful though inspired, press ahead on the exacting path towards freedom for all humankind. We must not let her down.

Thank you, Rosa. As we say where I come from: Hamba Kahle.