Nothin' Lady-like

This is in reference to Danielle L. McGuire's article "'It Was like All of Us Had Been Raped': Sexual Violence, Community Mobilization, and the African American Freedom Struggle" (course reader, 296). The balance between mobilizing a community in the struggle to attain freedom and maintaining equality within that community, specifically amongst African-American Women. Interestingly, in the example of Rosa Parks, in the process of uplifting the race and iconizing this one black woman, they rejected an entire demographic of black women that were equally audacious, and possibly even more so in choosing to live outside of the ideals that made Rosa Parks the icon. These "certain" black women would be ostracized as outsiders for their failure to embody ideals of respectability, ideals represented in the culture of dissemblance, and all the components of the proper and beautiful lady. Historians often speak of Parks actions as particular because she sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott; however, the question is why this woman's actions and not one of the many women before her?

(From prison)

Journal Entry:

Heard today of a light-skinned woman just in Montgomery that caused a stir refusing to give up her seat on the bus to a white man. According to an inside source, the community is up in arms ready to take action. And there's been big talk too, with people saying their fed up. I don't know why now is any different from before, but I reckon she'll be near famous, that woman, before this is all over. I suppose when you resist like a lady, the community will get up behind you, the church and everything. People came to say their goodbyes before the locked me up, but they sure didn't start to rioting like this. Of course what I did wasn't nothin' lady-like either...

Kendra Davis