Posted on 04/26/2009 6:31:01 PM PDT by Captain Kirk
What is happening in the cradle of the modern civil rights movement? Jimmy McCall would like to know. 'It was more my dream house,' he laments, 'and the city tore it down ... It reminds me of how they used to mistreat black people in the Old South.' In 1955, Rosa Parks took on the whole system of Jim Crow by refusing to give up her seat on a segregated Montgomery bus. Today, McCall is waging a lonely battle against the same city government for another civil right: the freedom to build a home on his own land.
Though McCall's ambitions are modest, he is exceptionally determined. For years, he has scraped together a living by salvaging rare materials from historic homes and then selling them to private builders. Sometimes months went by before he had a client. Finally, he had put aside enough to purchase two acres in Montgomery and started to build. He did the work himself using materials accumulated in his business including a supply of sturdy and extremely rare longleaf pine.
McCall only earns enough money to build in incremental stages, but eventually his dream home took shape. According to a news story by Benjamin Solomon, the structure had 'the high slanted ceilings, the exposed beams of dark, antique wood. It looks like a charming, spacious home in the making.'
But from the outset, the city showed unremitting hostility. He has almost lost count of the roadblocks it threw up including a citation for keeping the necessary building materials on his own land during the construction process.
(Excerpt) Read more at tuscaloosanews.com ...
What hath Kelo wrought.
“In 1955, Rosa Parks took on the whole system of Jim Crow by refusing to give up her seat on a segregated Montgomery bus.”
Why do we believe in silly myths like this? She didn’t take on the system. Other people did it in her name. I’m sure all she wanted to do was sit down.
And not one man stands in the way of the government dragon. This issue should be a front and center issue for conservatives and Americans. That it isn’t is much like the canary in the mine. The canary is dead.
I wonder why he didn't stay and fight the injustices of Ida Amin?
Of all the places in the world he could have gone, he winds up in Montgomery, Alabama?
Under the circumstances of the time, I really doubt that *all* she wanted was to sit down. That may have been the driver, but this was an act that defied existing law. There were likely other such acts, but this one took spark.
OTOH, I could be persuaded: Can you back up your surmise that all she wanted was to sit down and nothing more? Given the high profile of the situation there must be countervailing documentation.
Well, actually, the truth behind Rosa Parks was that her act was NOT a spontaneous one, as the carefully constructed mythology would have it.
She was in fact a trained activist.
Thanks.
“Can you back up your surmise that all she wanted was to sit down and nothing more?”
I don’t know, she could have been a trained activist. I’m simply judging from the way the story is told in the history books. They say she didn’t set out to start a boycott. It’s true that she defied the law, and therefore it was technically involved in civil disobediance. But the way the story’s told, she was disobedient in order to sit down, not to take on “the system”.
Myu understanding was the professional activists took it from there. Now, if she was previosly part of the movement, and her defiance had been orchestrated, that would be another matter. I’m no expert. All I’m saying is, even according to the liberal myth, she wasn’t the one taking on the system. She only took on one bus driver.
“It was more my dream house,’ he laments, ‘and the city tore it down ... It reminds me of how they used to mistreat black people in the Old South.’”
Actually, it’s much more like this.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2233470/posts
Someone was looking for an angel figure to galvanize the civil rights movement, someone with a head for politics -- Richard Nixon. He decided that Rosa Parks, widow of a veteran, a working, older woman, who had been arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white man, was the perfect image for the civil rights movement.
She wasn't the first to give up her seat, but Nixon knew we needed a shining hero with a halo to make this work. So he cheated and picked Mrs. Parks. Because Nixon, a Republican, wanted it to suceed and he knew how to play politics. Tricky Dick used his eeeeevil sneaky ways to eliminate the Jim Crow laws. I will always respect him for this.
My Mama was active in what is now called “civil rights” back when it was just called “the right thing to do.”
And this, in the city of my birth, is just plain injustice. Why isn’t Southern Poverty Law involved? Their offices are right in town.
She was a trained activist for the communist party.
Good question.
bttt
bttt
Property Rights in Alabama bump
HMM nowhere in the article is it mentioned that the Mayor’s office and city council are dominated by Liberal Lefty Democrats elected by these same people who are whining about how the city treats them.
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