Rosa Parks Essay Describes Rape Attempt [View All]

Source: Slate

Newly released papers and personal items of civil rights icon Rosa Parks paint a portrait of a complicated woman who drew on a life of racial polarization and often harrowing personal experience to make the case for equality, the Associated Press reports.

The portion of the archives that is sure to have most people talking, however, is the mention of an instance in 1931 during which she feared she would be raped by a white neighbor who employed her as a housekeeper.

"He offered me a drink of whiskey, which I promptly and vehemently refused," she wrote. "He moved nearer to me and put his hand on my waist. I was very frightened by now... I was ready to die but give my consent never. Never, never."

Civil rights historian Danielle McGuire told the AP that the frightening incident helps explain Parks' relentless efforts to end sexual violence against black women during the Jim Crow era. "I thought it was because of the stories that she had heard, but this gives a much more personal context to that," McGuire said.


Read more: http://slatest.slate.com/posts/2011/07/29/rosa_parks_essay_describes_rape_attempt_paper_part_of_trove_up_f.html

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I can't help but be reminded of how Strom Thurmond "fathered" a child with a 16-year-old African-American "employee" of his solid, upstanding, Christian family. I sincerely hope that, like the goddamn pig he was in life, he is now roasting very slowly on a spit over an incredibly Hot Fire!

:puke: