“Better to die fighting for freedom than to be a prisoner all the days of your life.” Bob Marley’s words perfectly capture the wild spirit of civil resistance, a non-violent act meant to cause a change in laws that goes against a ‘norm’, but doesn’t necessarily break a law. Odessa explores this concept in The Long Walk Home while she joins the Montgomery bus boycott to fight for equality among the races. While Odessa’s story is fictional, it is in fact based on a real event. Rosa Parks war arrested in 1955 for refusing to give up her seat on the bus to a white man. Only four days later, Martin Luther King Jr. organized the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The buses depended on African Americans for money. When they stopped riding the buses, the whole
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Mrs.Thompson notices how tired Odessa is and offers to pick her up and drive her to work. At first, Odessa sits in the backseat out of respect, but at the end of the movie Mrs.Thompson invites her to sit in the passenger seat. She no longer cares what her husband thinks; Mrs.Thompson is acting on her instinct and doing what she believes is right. Being able to sit in the front seat with Mrs.Thompson was a big deal for Odessa. It made her and Mrs.Thompson equals for the first time. They were fighting for freedom together, and the unity only made them stronger. Neither Odessa nor Mrs.Thompson could have been arrested for this, but they faced discrimination and hate from those who disagreed with African Americans having equal rights. As written in “Civil Disobedience”, “On this account, the persons who practice civil disobedience are willing to accept the legal consequences of their actions, as this shows their fidelity to the rule of law” (“Civil Disobedience” …show more content…
She had no idea that she was creating history at the time, or that what she had done would lead to one of the most famous acts of civil resistance in U.S. history. However, her actions had not gone without being noticed. The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) asked parks if they could build a case around her arrest. Sure enough, the NAACP decided to plan a one-day bus boycott. 90% of African Americans that typically rode the buses followed their lead and honored the boycott. What was supposed to be a one-day event turned into a year long
Mrs.Thompson notices how tired Odessa is and offers to pick her up and drive her to work. At first, Odessa sits in the backseat out of respect, but at the end of the movie Mrs.Thompson invites her to sit in the passenger seat. She no longer cares what her husband thinks; Mrs.Thompson is acting on her instinct and doing what she believes is right. Being able to sit in the front seat with Mrs.Thompson was a big deal for Odessa. It made her and Mrs.Thompson equals for the first time. They were fighting for freedom together, and the unity only made them stronger. Neither Odessa nor Mrs.Thompson could have been arrested for this, but they faced discrimination and hate from those who disagreed with African Americans having equal rights. As written in “Civil Disobedience”, “On this account, the persons who practice civil disobedience are willing to accept the legal consequences of their actions, as this shows their fidelity to the rule of law” (“Civil Disobedience” …show more content…
She had no idea that she was creating history at the time, or that what she had done would lead to one of the most famous acts of civil resistance in U.S. history. However, her actions had not gone without being noticed. The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) asked parks if they could build a case around her arrest. Sure enough, the NAACP decided to plan a one-day bus boycott. 90% of African Americans that typically rode the buses followed their lead and honored the boycott. What was supposed to be a one-day event turned into a year long