Book review: 70 years ago, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on that bus

We remember what happened. John K. Bollard wondered about those times racial discrimination took place on public transportation. He researched incidents when passengers fought back. He identified almost one hundred notable moments, compiling them in “Protesting with Rosa Parks - From Stagecoaches to Driving While Black.”

David Ruggles was one determined objector. In 1834 he boarded a stagecoach from New York to New Jersey-the driver informed him: he could not ride inside the coach, but would have to ride outside with the driver. Ruggles objected. It was the first of many occasions when Ruggles challenged the racist status quo.

Ruggles would purchase first class tickets and expect to occupy first class compartments. If he was ordered to go elsewhere he would politely refuse. Passenger trains were becoming common-Black passengers were obligated to ride in separate train cars.

Those cars were often nightmarish spaces. It was Ruggles who first began to describe these horrific vehicles as “Jim Crow cars” because it was what were known as Jim Crow laws that were perpetrating this segregation. Whenever Ruggles encountered such treatment he would write magnificent denouncements of the practices for an abolitionist newspaper.

Some encounters got violent. Black train passengers who refused to move to segregated cars when conductors threatened them could find themselves yanked out of their seats by train employees who on some occasions would even eject them from moving trains.

In 1908 Mary Church Terrell encountered a man on a streetcar who was threatening her. After he ordered her to move she reacted. She wrote in her diary: " I hit him in the face, not very hard to be sure, for I tried to restrain my hand and I partially succeeded, but I had slapped him just the same."

Let’s remember and honor Rosa Parks and all these lesser known but equally brave people who struck blows for freedom and dignity.