“I did not want to be mistreated, I did not want to be deprived of a seat that I had paid for. It was just time… there was an opportunity for me to take a stand to express the way I felt about being treated in that manner. I had not planned to get arrested. I had plenty to do without having to end up in jail. But when I had to face that decision, I didn’t hesitate to do so because I felt that we had endured that too long. The more we gave in, the more we complied with that kind of treatment, the more oppressive it became.”

• Rosa Parks, “Parks Recalls Bus Boycott, Excerpts from an interview with Lynn Neary”, National Public Radio (1992)

March is Women’s History Month, a celebration of women’s often-overlooked contributions to our history, culture, and society. 

According to the last U.S. Census, women make up 50.5% of the population. However, throughout our history, from 16-year-old American Revolutionary War heroine Sybil Ludington, who rode around 40 miles—more than twice the distance of Paul Revere—to warn against the British to NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson, whose calculations at NASA were vital to the success of the first and following U.S. crewed flights into space, the accomplishments of women have often been ignored, dismissed, or co-opted in history books. Heritage months like Women’s History Month are necessary because visibility challenges ingrained sexism, helps reverse gender biases, and provides both young girls and boys with role models of women in the same fields and industries as their male counterparts. Women provide diverse perspectives and their own lived experiences to every facet of life, community, and our country. 

In the history of the United States, women have played a part in our decisions and our victories and have been vocal for the changes needed in their homes, communities, and states. Rosa Parks, remembered for her action against racism and inequality that sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott, became known as the “mother of the civil rights movement.” She stood up for what is right by sitting down in the segregated seating section of a public bus and refusing to move. Her subsequent arrest and the resulting boycott lasted over a year and educated a nation on Jim Crow and the uneven application of civil rights in the South. The Montgomery Bus Boycott had economic consequences and eventually led to Browder v. Gayle, a United States Supreme Court decision that declared the Alabama and Montgomery laws that segregated buses were unconstitutional.

While the decision led to the dismantling of the segregated bus system in Montgomery and the state of Alabama, it also resulted in an immediate backlash. After the ruling, there were bombings, sniper shootings, physical violence, and even a lynching by the Klan and other groups angered by the reversal of segregation on the bus system. And segregation remained in every other facet of daily life in the state. However, her silent civil disobedience, much like Claudette Colvin before her, led to a mass movement. Her decision resulted in real social community action and the start of greater social change with segregation eventually being overturned across the country in all areas of public life. Rosa Parks continued a life of activism and was eventually awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and a Congressional Gold Medal.

Rosa Parks took the power of one person’s deliberate action and one voice to speak for many and stand up for what is right, changing the country for the better. From the Jung Sai Garment Work Strikers in Chinatown to Sylvia Mendez fighting for an education to Yuri Kochiyama, who stood up for what is right by giving voice to thousands of innocent Japanese Americans unjustly incarcerated during WWII, the Korematsu Institute celebrates the girls and women who make history every day. This is about all of us.