When he write: "Was he a fire-breathing segregationist, mortally affronted by the nerve of this tiny colored woman in wanting to keep her seat? Was he just some guy who accepted the privileges the law conferred upon him without thinking much about right or wrong? Was he a man who saw segregation for the idiocy it was, but kept quiet, didn't rock the boat because what could he do, one man against The Way Things Were?"
How about the man was someone who tried to do the right thing -- let Parks keep her seat -- and when he couldn't chose to disappear into anonymity, rather than take a place in the spotlight?