As cool as those anecdotes sound, I am not sure that either of them are true.
Homer Plessy
The Wikipedia article on Plessy v. Ferguson explains the following:
“In 1890, the State of Louisiana passed the Separate Car Act, which required separate accommodation for black and white people on railroads, including separate railway cars. A group of 18 prominent black, creole of color, and white creole New Orleans residents formed the Comité des Citoyens (Committee of Citizens) to challenge the law. Many staff members of The New Orleans Crusader, a black Republican newspaper, were among the group's members, including publisher Louis A. Martinet, writer Rodolphe Desdunes, and managing editor L. J. Joubert, who served as president of the Justice, Protective, Educational, and Social Club at the same time Plessy was vice president.
The group contacted attorney and civil rights advocate Albion W. Tourgée, who agreed to help them bring a test case to court in order to force the judiciary to determine the constitutionality of Jim Crow laws. In his correspondence with Martinet, Tourgée suggested finding a plaintiff who had "not more than one-eight colored blood" and could pass as white.”
Rosa Parks
The Wikipedia articles on Rosa Parks and on The Montgomery bus boycott seem very clear that Rosa Parks decided on her own to break the law. Nowhere do they suggest that Parks was specifically selected to engage in her act of civil disobedience:
“In 1955, Parks completed a course in "Race Relations" at the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee, where nonviolent civil disobedience had been discussed as a tactic. On December 1, 1955, Parks was sitting in the foremost row in which black people could sit (in the middle section). When a white man boarded the bus, the bus driver told everyone in her row to move back. At that moment, Parks realized that she was again on a bus driven by Blake. While all of the other black people in her row complied, Parks refused, and she was arrested for failing to obey the driver's seat assignments, as city ordinances did not explicitly mandate segregation but did give the bus driver authority to assign seats.”
“During a 1956 radio interview with Sydney Rogers in West Oakland several months after her arrest, Parks said she had decided, "I would have to know for once and for all what rights I had as a human being and a citizen."
In her autobiography, My Story, she said:
People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.
When Parks refused to give up her seat, a police officer arrested her. As the officer took her away, she recalled that she asked, "Why do you push us around?" She remembered him saying, "I don't know, but the law's the law, and you're under arrest." She later said, "I only knew that, as I was being arrested, that it was the very last time that I would ever ride in humiliation of this kind. ... "”
Although I haven’t spent much time looking, a few minutes on Google didn’t turn up any evidence confirming either of your claims.
Keep reading the article on Plessy. It quite clearly goes on about how Plessy was handpicked for the second test case and had the cooperation of the railroad.
As for Parks, it's a recollection from some reading long ago. I can't cite it as it's been at least twenty years, but it's not out of the nature of the civil rights movement to have picked people who had unassailable character for test cases. Wikipedia is a valuable resource, but it's also not the place you go for a full story.
> Mrs. Parks was not the first person to be prosecuted for violating the segregation laws on the city buses in Montgomery. She was, however, a woman of unchallenged character who was held in high esteem by all those who knew her. At the time of her arrest, Mrs. Parks was active in the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), serving as secretary to E.D. Nixon, president of the Montgomery chapter.
... which to me certainly suggests that she was not random.
> Shortly after the beginning of the Montgomery Bus Boycott in December 1955, many black community leaders were discussing whether they would file a federal lawsuit to try to challenge the City of Montgomery and Alabama about the bus segregation laws.
> About two months after the bus boycott began, civil rights activists reconsidered the case of Claudette Colvin. She was a 15-year-old who had been the first person arrested in 1955 for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus, nine months prior to Rosa Parks's actions. Fred Gray, E. D. Nixon, president of the NAACP and secretary of the new Montgomery Improvement Association: and Clifford Durr (a white lawyer who, with his wife, Virginia Foster Durr was an activist in the Civil Rights Movement) searched for the ideal case law to challenge the constitutional legitimacy of the Montgomery and Alabama bus segregation laws.
> Gray later did research for the lawsuit and consulted with NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorneys Robert L. Carter and Thurgood Marshall (who would late become United States Solicitor General and the first African-American United States Supreme Court Justice). Gray later approached Claudette Colvin, Aurelia Browder, Susie McDonald, Mary Louise Smith (activist), and Jeanetta Reese, all women who had been discriminated against by the drivers enforcing segregation policy in the Montgomery bus system. They all agreed to become plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit (except Jeanetta Reese due to intimidation by the members of the white community), thus bypassing the Alabama court system.
Heck, even the Wiki article on Parks notes that she worked for a pro-civil-rights white couple where the husband was a lawyer, that they had sponsored her in going to training on activism, and that that lawyer and the president of the local NAACP were the ones who bailed her out of jail on the night of her arrest.
I read the entire Plessy entry. Nowhere does it say that he was “sponsored by the railroad” or anything like that.
The closest thing I could find is the following statement:
“The railroad company, which had opposed the law on the grounds that it would require the purchase of more railcars, had been previously informed of Plessy's racial lineage, and the intent to challenge the law.”
I agree with you that Plessy was handpicked, but you also wrote that Plessy “was sponsored by the railroad.” That is what I responded to, and I still don't see any evidence that it’s true. On the contrary, it seems clear that Plessy was selected and sponsored by a group that had no affiliation with the railroad company.
What evidence do you have that the Comité des Citoyens — which recruited Plessy, orchestrated his arrest, and organized the litigation in Plessy v. Ferguson — was connected to the railroad?
Rosa Parks
None of the things you quoted are evidence that Rosa Parks was selected in advance, by anyone other than herself, to engage in her famous act of civil disobedience. Parks’ own statements after the event indicate that she self-selected.
The fact that Parks was very involved in the NAACP is not evidence that the organization recruited her to engage in civil disobedience. Most of what you quoted is in relation to litigation that happened after Rosa Parks’ civil disobedience.
You also wrote that “Various civil rights organizations had guaranteed her family that they would replace any income lost.” What evidence do you have that Parks received such a guarantee prior to her act of civil disobedience?
I told you, I read it a long time ago. Disbelieve me if you wish. It's nigh impossible to find genuine information anymore on the internet, assuming that what I originally read is even still up.
I don't have enough time to play Wikipedia editor games about attribution. Believe me or don't.
Homer Plessy
The Wikipedia article on Plessy v. Ferguson explains the following:
“In 1890, the State of Louisiana passed the Separate Car Act, which required separate accommodation for black and white people on railroads, including separate railway cars. A group of 18 prominent black, creole of color, and white creole New Orleans residents formed the Comité des Citoyens (Committee of Citizens) to challenge the law. Many staff members of The New Orleans Crusader, a black Republican newspaper, were among the group's members, including publisher Louis A. Martinet, writer Rodolphe Desdunes, and managing editor L. J. Joubert, who served as president of the Justice, Protective, Educational, and Social Club at the same time Plessy was vice president.
The group contacted attorney and civil rights advocate Albion W. Tourgée, who agreed to help them bring a test case to court in order to force the judiciary to determine the constitutionality of Jim Crow laws. In his correspondence with Martinet, Tourgée suggested finding a plaintiff who had "not more than one-eight colored blood" and could pass as white.”
Rosa Parks
The Wikipedia articles on Rosa Parks and on The Montgomery bus boycott seem very clear that Rosa Parks decided on her own to break the law. Nowhere do they suggest that Parks was specifically selected to engage in her act of civil disobedience:
“In 1955, Parks completed a course in "Race Relations" at the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee, where nonviolent civil disobedience had been discussed as a tactic. On December 1, 1955, Parks was sitting in the foremost row in which black people could sit (in the middle section). When a white man boarded the bus, the bus driver told everyone in her row to move back. At that moment, Parks realized that she was again on a bus driven by Blake. While all of the other black people in her row complied, Parks refused, and she was arrested for failing to obey the driver's seat assignments, as city ordinances did not explicitly mandate segregation but did give the bus driver authority to assign seats.”
“During a 1956 radio interview with Sydney Rogers in West Oakland several months after her arrest, Parks said she had decided, "I would have to know for once and for all what rights I had as a human being and a citizen."
In her autobiography, My Story, she said:
People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in. When Parks refused to give up her seat, a police officer arrested her. As the officer took her away, she recalled that she asked, "Why do you push us around?" She remembered him saying, "I don't know, but the law's the law, and you're under arrest." She later said, "I only knew that, as I was being arrested, that it was the very last time that I would ever ride in humiliation of this kind. ... "”
Although I haven’t spent much time looking, a few minutes on Google didn’t turn up any evidence confirming either of your claims.
Why do you think they are true?