Today
is Martin Luther King Day, my favorite holiday because it celebrates opposition
to hatred and injustice. One great example is the Montgomery, Alabama bus
strike, launched in December of 1955 by Rosa Parks’ brave determination to stay
seated on a bus, which set black workers walking and carpooling for 381 days
until all Montgomery buses were desegregated. Of all the writings about the bus
strike and the hard walking workers endured, there is one single-sentence quote
that captures it best for me. Martin Luther King, Jr. told the story to the New York Times in 1961:
On a chill morning in the autumn of 1956, an elderly,
toilworn Negro woman… began her slow painful four-mile walk to her job… The old
woman’s difficult progress led a passerby to inquire sympathetically if her
feet were tired. Her simple answer…, “Yes, friend, my feet is real tired, but
my soul is rested.”
The
walking itself, the hard, painful walking, and the complex carpool system they
set up were points of pride. I realize and respect this. But I’ve always
wondered how the movement might have unfolded if they could have used bicycles,
too. Many more black people could have participated and the strain on the carpool
system would have been eased. Perhaps bikes could have enabled even more bus
strikes across the south. And then, imagine how many black workers would have
kept riding, free from bus fares and the limits of their routes and schedules.
Unfortunately,
in the 1950s and 60s bicycles were viewed only as toys in the U.S. Bikes were
made to look like rocket ships and motorcycles, equipped with toy guns and
sirens. It’s no wonder our civil rights heroes never even thought of them.
So where
are we today in comparison?
A
movement has emerged after horrific events with the name Black Lives Matter.
That anyone, individual or group, has to proclaim that their life matters
should appall us.
Politicians
promote hatred and fear to gain power. And it works.
The
CEOs of our top bike companies here in the U.S. still refer to bicycling only as
a sport, their companies cranking out blingy mountain bikes and road racers
with hardly a wink to basic bikes for getting around.
The
civil rights movement continues, it must; expanded now to oppose fearmongering
toward any group and stomp out propaganda that segregates. Each of us—anyone
who reads blogs like this one, anyone who knows the danger of hatred and
prejudice—must protest every act of prejudice, whether through words spoken,
police brutality, or through improper transportation provisions.
And let’s
finally demand that our bike industry and transportation officials ensure that
anyone, no matter how marginalized they may be by our current backslide toward
prejudice, can choose the freedom of bicycling for their means of
transportation.
Sue
