Another hero of the civil rights movement died this week. Oprah Winfrey eulogized Rosa Parks by saying that as a child when her father told her about a colored woman who refused to give up her seat; in her child's mind she thought she must be really big. "I thought she must be at least 100 feet tall. I imagined her being stalwart and strong and carrying a shield to hold back the white folks. And then I grew up and had the esteemed honor of meeting her, and wasn't that a surprise. Here was this petite, almost delicate lady who was the personification of grace and goodness."

I also had the pleasure of meeting Rosa Parks at my alma mater The University of South Carolina at Spartanburg, now known as University of the Upstate. Mrs. Parks came to deliver a speech at USCS when I was a radio news reporter. I too was surprised at how small, delicate and soft spoken she was. I assumed she would be tall and strong and but as she explained in her remarks her decision to stay in her seat that fateful day was not born of rage but of weariness. She was simply tired that day. Mrs. Parks worked as a maid and she was bone weary from a long day of cleaning someone else's house all day and simply didn't want to get up and move to the back of the bus and that's why she refused to give up her seat. She simply didn't want to get up and move again after she finally got to sit down after her long day. And in that simple act was born a civil rights movement.

Who could have ever guessed that one tiny light-skinned black woman would be the one person who was willing to stand up to a white man, a bus driver, the police and a racist society that refused to treat hard-working people with basic human dignity? As Oprah said, "Sister Rosa changed the trajectory of my life and the lives of so many other people in the world." By simply refusing to move to the back of the bus. The lesson Mrs. Parks taught us is that you don't have to be 100 feet tall to change to world or lead a movement. It's the lesson Cindy Sheehan teaches us, you don't have to have a detailed plan to try to stop a senseless war based on lies. All you have to do is follow your heart and believe in yourself and have the courage to stand up for what you believe in. Ahh...but there's the rub. The courage to sit in your seat and not move to the back of the bus. I'm sure it was scary for Mrs. Parks that day in the bus when that white man cursed at her and probably spat in her face and the bus driver yelled at her and then the police came and arrested her and she had to be hand cuffed and had her mug shot taken. Mrs. Parks had no way of knowing she would eventually be a civil rights leader, at the time she was simply another negro with an arrest record, who would probably lose her job because of her arrest. Even on that long ago day at USCS Mrs. Parks seemed stunned by the fallout from her simple act of defiance. She was a simple woman who was just sick and tired of having to move to the back of the bus after a long day. Sometimes courage is acting without knowing the end result but believing that you are right and it will all work out in the end. Like Oprah says, "I realized that God uses good people to do great things." God bless you and keep you, Rosa Parks.