Upon this day in nineteen-fifty-five,
one Rosa Parks got on a downtown bus,
not knowing a new era would arrive,
or she would be the cause of so much fuss.
The driver had instructed four black folk
to take their "proper" places at the rear.
Rosa, alone, thought that request a joke
and answered, "I don't think so, thank you dear."
The woman was arrested for affray
and fined ten dollars for her heinous crime;
but then, the issue wouldn't go away—
could segregation stand the test of time?
The victims of injustice stood their ground,
and for a year, refused to ride the bus.
The judgement of the court was clear and sound,
"This conduct's unacceptable to us."
Montgomery became a landmark case,
obstrigillation paid a dividend.
Discrimination rears its ugly face,
but empathy can bring it to an end.
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Author Notes
Today's word: obstrigillation (n.) the action of opposing or resisting; an act of defiance.
December 1, 2018 marks the first ever "Rosa Parks Day" in Alabama, 63 years after her history-making trip.
My much-treasured Christmas present for 2017 is a book by Paul Anthony Jones: "The cabinet of linguistic curiosities". Each page contains a descriptive story about some obscure or archaic word. It occurred to me it would be a fun exercise to try and write, each day, a poem featuring the "word of the day" from the book.
Thanks for reading.
Photo: Lieske Leunissen-Ritzen [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
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