“A PLACE AT THE TABLE; A SEAT ON THE BUS”

A Sermon by the Rev. Bruce Clear

Sunday, November 13, 2005

All Souls Unitarian Church

Indianapolis, Indiana

Since her death on October 24^th, many of us have re-visited the story of Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955. If we read deeply enough, we know that the story is far more complex than the simple legend that has been taught. There is something of a cultural myth that has arisen around her legendary act and her legendary life. The myth is somewhat different than the real story itself, but in many ways, there is far more truth to the myth than there is to the actual story. Let me explain that convoluted sentence.

The myth goes something like this: Rosa Parks was a 43 year old ordinary Black woman in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955 – a housewife, a seamstress, and a tailor’s assistant at a downtown department store. On December 1^st, she boarded a city bus after a tiring day at work, and sat down to rest her feet. When the white section at the front of the bus filled up, the driver demanded that she move to the back section, designated the “colored” section, to give a white man a seat. She refused. It was a spontaneous decision on her part, but she was tired – not only tired after a long day of work, but also tired of being treated as a second-class citizen. The driver had her arrested, and in response the black community of Montgomery began a bus boycott, led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The peaceful protest worked, bringing the segregated bus company to its knees, and resulting in the Supreme Court’s rejection of those segregation laws in Alabama.

That is the myth of Rosa Parks, and it is entirely true, as far as it goes. But there is more to it than can be gleaned from the mere myth. For one thing, Rosa Parks was more than a simple day laborer wanting a seat after an exhausting day at work. She was in her quiet way a civil rights activist long before that pivotal day. She had been a long-time secretary of the local chapter of the NAACP, and was well known in civil rights circles. She had attended civil rights training classes at the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee. And furthermore, she was well aware of a long-standing movement among civil rights leaders in Montgomery to challenge the segregationist laws on the buses.

The public humiliation of African Americans on the buses in Montgomery, Alabama was a long time sore point for the Black community. Some years before, she herself had been thrown off a bus because she refused to enter the back door instead of the front door.

As early as 1946, the leaders of the African American community were organizing to end segregation on buses, and as early as 1953, Black leaders in Montgomery were threatening the city with a bus boycott. Almost three out of four bus riders in town were black citizens, so a boycott would surely bankrupt the bus company. By the time Rosa Parks was arrested, the plan for a boycott had been well on its way, and she was aware of the plan. While several other black women had been arrested earlier that year for refusing to move to back of the bus, the leaders of the movement weren’t confident that their circumstances were the right ones to build their case around. One person arrested had been a 15 year old black girl that Rosa had known from an NAACP youth group she led.

It is true that Rosa Parks was not “chosen” to be arrested as their test case, and it is true that her refusal to move to the back was not a premeditated plan she intended to happen that day. But it is also the case that when the day came – when she finally said, “enough is enough” and realized she couldn’t continue to bow to the humiliating dictates of an oppressive system – on the day that she firmly refused to move from her seat, she was by then well aware and well informed that the civil rights leaders in the city were looking for an opportunity for public protest of the segregationist system on the buses, and had discussed the prospect of a boycott as a part of that protest. Yes she was tired, and yes she was quiet and unassuming in her demeanor. But she was not naïve. She knew exactly what she was doing, what the consequences would likely be, and why it was important.

I said earlier that the myth that surrounds the legend of Rosa Parks is somewhat different than the real story, but I also said that in many ways there is far more truth to the myth than there is to the actual story. The legend is about an individual who was fed up with the indignity of the segregationist laws, and though that isn’t the only truth to the story, it is perhaps the most important one. The true legacy of Rosa Parks’ courageous action is how injustice against one person showed the world the injustice of the entire segregationist system. The actual facts concerning her long-term active involvement in the larger civil rights movement do not detract from the truth of the myth. Rosa Parks’ courage came not just from her personal sense of being mistreated; it also came from a deeper sense of justice for all, learned by years of living in an unjust society.

Many Americans today recognize a certain irony in the honoring of Rosa Parks. From the early 21^st century it is so easy for society at large to recognize the courage of her decision that day; the dehumanizing and unjust the segregationist practices of that time are so obvious to us now. But it wasn’t obvious back then to most of white middle-class America. Those views that come easily today were not so easy in the mid-twentieth century. At the time of the civil rights movement, it was a struggle to get most Americans to comprehend the nature of the injustice of segregation.

Even among the white Americans who believed such laws to be wrong, there were many, even most, and even in the North, who were uneasy with the outspokenness of civil rights activists, and would rather just look the other way. There were many who sympathized with the sense of injustice, but would rather they not be so vocal and confrontational about it all. There were many, maybe even most, who didn’t like the idea of people breaking unjust laws in order to change them, and somehow felt that the threat to the order of society was more of a danger than the threat of unjust laws to the humanity of the minorities.

It is difficult to perceive from our day why Martin Luther King was so unpopular in his time, even among the moderate middle classes which believed racist laws to be unjust. King himself was puzzled by the apathy of the moderate middle-class whites. From his cell in a jail in Birmingham, Alabama, King wrote about his disappointment in the resolve of so many well-meaning people in the white community. Here is part of what he said:

“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council nor the Ku Klux Klan, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice. Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is more bewildering than outright rejection.

America is a living irony. As a nation, we take pride in being a “melting pot” of diverse people. It is our national myth that we are a place where anyone of any background has a “place at the table” of society; that we accept the “tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” And yet it is a constant struggle, far from finished, to turn that myth into reality.

It is our hardest challenge as a nation to offer “a place at the table” to everyone. Though segregationist laws are long gone, we are still far away from a society in which everyone is accepted as an equal partner. The races continue to be divided in so many ways, and racial tensions reveal our greatest weakness as a nation.

But there are many other circumstances that challenge us in finding a “place at the table” for everyone today. We still read, almost daily, of people who insist that the United States is a “Christian nation,” and that other religions should feel fortunate because they are “tolerated” in this country. It is still difficult for minority religions to have a “place at the table” in America.

It has only recently occurred to us that disabled people also deserve a place at the table. Yet many people still scoff at efforts to make places “handicap accessible,” and other people ridicule the ways schools try to accommodate to those with learning disabilities. There will not be a “place at the table” for these people until the scoffing and the ridicule is drowned out by an overwhelming chorus of voices for justice. That time is not here yet.

After hundreds of years since the violent takeover of American lands by European nations, the native people still don’t have a “place at the table” in this society. For centuries, those Native Americans who were not the victims of genocide have been the victims of forced isolation and benign neglect. American Indians are an invisible people that society would prefer to ignore, except for a patronizing salute now and then to their quaint culture. It may be a while before they are given a welcoming “place at the table,” in part because their presence provides an uneasy reminder of the depth of injustice that our society is capable of inflicting.

A more recent challenge to providing a “place at the table” involves acceptance of our gay and lesbian citizens. There is an ongoing battle over the extent to which they are welcome at our society’s table, and the issue is far from being settled. One example of this is the recent debate over whether to include sexual orientation as a protected civil rights category, alongside race, religion, gender, and so forth. We continue to hear it said that such measures provide minorities “special rights,” and whenever I hear that said, I realize it reveals a deep ignorance about the meaning of civil rights.

The way Civil rights protection works is probably best illustrated by specific examples. For example, under these civil rights laws, you cannot fire someone simply because of his or her race. It does not say that you cannot fire a person who is a racial minority, but only that race cannot be a reason for firing them. Or, take another example. You cannot discriminate against women in hiring. That doesn't mean you have to hire a woman, but simply that you cannot use gender as a disqualification for employment. Or, take one more example. You cannot evict renters from their apartment because they are Catholics, or Mormons, or fundamentalist Christians. There are legitimate reasons for evicting tenets, but their religious beliefs are legitimate reasons.

Civil rights protection means that in employment or housing or other public arena, race, religion, or gender are not acceptable reasons for discrimination.

Adding “sexual orientation” to the list does not provide any “special rights” that shouldn’t be available to all Americans. It simply says that in our society, this is not a legitimate reason for firing people or taking away their homes or even refusing them service in a restaurant. Until people are given these basic considerations, as all others have, then there will not be a place at the table for them.

What I want to draw our attention to this morning is how much more needs to be done to fulfill the vision inspired by Rosa Parks’ actions.

No one can deny that the struggle for legal justice, triggered by Rosa Parks 50 years ago, has indeed been a long stride toward freedom. But it becomes evident each day how much that crusade was really only one step in a long journey that is still incomplete. It is still incomplete with regard to racial relations, and it is still incomplete with regard to many other minority groups. We are still a nation in tension with diversity.

The painful effort to bring about voting rights, housing rights, equal protection under the law, as vital as those efforts have been, and as difficult as they were to achieve, appear today to have been the easy part, and the more difficult work lies ahead. Those who fought and toiled for the right to legal equality in education and public accommodation did something that was crucial to the cause of justice, but that battle seems now to have been the easy part. The more difficult work lies ahead.

Today we face the difficult part: to open not just the laws to justice, but to open our hearts to a new vision of society. The fight for just laws might be called the fight for “a seat on the bus” – that is, providing simple legal protections for everyone’s place in society. But we need something more than laws that are just, something more than institutions that are open to equal opportunity. What we need from all people, in all groups, is an affirmation and celebration of the diversity that enriches society. We need a society that looks to those who are minority – whether by race, by religion, by national origin, by sexual orientation, or any other distinctive identity – and not think in terms of “us” and “them.” We need not only to allow all people a seat on the bus – that is, the legal protections of a free and just society. We also need to offer a “place at the table” of society: an honest appreciation for the value that everyone brings to our social table. A re-structuring of laws is just the beginning; we now need to restructure human values. That is the difficult work that lies ahead.

I do not mean merely that the racial and cultural groups in our society need to learn to tolerate or to “just get along,” as Rodney King famously suggested during the L.A. riots some years ago. “Tolerance,” though it is a foundational principle within Unitarian Universalist principles, is really just a beginning, not an end, in promoting justice

Mere tolerance is not what we need. “Live and let live” isn’t enough (though some might say it’s at least a good start). In fact, the word "tolerance" carries some subtle negative connotations. To “tolerate” someone implies less than enthusiastic appreciation. If you tell me that you “tolerate” my singing voice. . . well, I guess I have a pretty good idea of how you feel about my singing voice. In 1689, when England decided to end persecution against religious minorities, it issued the famous “Act of Toleration.” “Toleration” in that case, prohibited persecution, though not discrimination. “Toleration” offered them a seat on the bus – the legal right to exist without persecution. But it did not offer them “a place at the table” – a respected role in society, a welcoming invitation to equal participation.

Laws are not enough. Even tolerance isn’t enough. It is time to move beyond accepting diversity, and embrace the respect for, and the welcoming of, diversity. Our hope for the future of our society and our world lies, I believe, in our ability to not just tolerate but to honor, embrace, and even appreciate our differences. Race is one aspect of this, one of the most crucial, but it is not the only aspect.

We live in a world in which more people are killed because of their differing beliefs than for any other reason. Our country continues to encourage conformity of belief. In 25 years of attending school-sponsored Christmas or Winter programs, I’ve seen only a little evidence of any effort to be inclusive and honor the diversity of beliefs among the families of the students.

We still live in a world in which conformity is expected and any deviance from the norm is at best ignored or just “tolerated,” but more often ridiculed or disparaged. For example, under the banner of “traditional values,” there is still a tendency not to welcome to the table of society those who do not fit the primary accepted pattern of life – such as single parent families, inter-racial families, homosexual families, or even couples who chose not to have children. We are a far way from realizing how diversity is a blessing rather than a curse, and how much those who bring to the table ideas that are different from our own help us to grow and mature, giving us a wider vision of life.

Our society will not be in a position to offer everyone “a place at the table” until we fully realize the value and the virtue of diversity. We have still yet to learn that human growth and maturity comes from our personal interchanges with people who show us different experiences of life, who show us different thinking about ideas, and who stretch our minds and hearts to look at the world differently. There will not be a “place at the table” for everyone until we not only tolerate diversity, but we look for opportunities to have meaningful exchange with people who look differently at life than we are used to seeing.

When Nelson Mandela was released from a South African prison in 1990, after many years of political imprisonment, Rosa Parks was selected as one of the delegates to meet and welcome him when he arrived in the United States. When Mandela recognized her in the crowd, he called out her name, gave her a hug and said to Rosa Parks, “You sustained me while I was in prison all those years.”

We have come a long way since that day in 1955 that Rosa Parks stood her ground and showed the world through her personal strength the need for justice and equality. We have come a long way since the struggle to give everyone a “seat on the bus.” But we still have a long way to go. We are still a long way from not only allowing everyone a “place at the table,” but from inviting them to that place. We’ve a long way to go, but it is the courage and character of people like Rosa Parks who will sustain us as we continue this struggle through the years to come.