The picture that most of us have of Rosa Parks is that of typical African-American woman of the time who was dragged off to jail for being the first person to refuse to give up her seat on a bus.
In reality, she was far from typical, but was very politically active - she was a secretary for the local branch of the NAACP and affiliated with the Highlander Folk School (a political activist group).
Also, she was not arrested - she was fined that day and was liable to arrest afterwards for nonpayment of the fine.
And she was not the first. Plenty of black people had refused to abide by the ridiculousness of the seating policy in Birmingham - however, she was the first one who fit the profile the SCLC was looking for. She was young, female, well-educated, happily married, gainfully employed and active in her local church and civic organizations.
So the use of Rosa Parks as the test case was a carefully managed, media-savvy campaign and not the spontaneous mass movement it was made out to be.
But it was hardly a "set-up."
Sounds like a set up to me.
Well, a "carefully managed, media-savvy campaign" sounds like a set-up to me. Not trying to argue, I just wanted to establish the facts. For that, I get called a crack smoker. Some people just want to talk sh*t.