The unlikely historian

Usually when he took the bus Cliff would be sitting in the middle beside Rosa. This was the 1950’s so segregation was still a thing. Normally when someone black would sit in the front of the bus the bus driver would immediately tell them to move to towards the back. Rosa and Cliff were friends for years and she would always have fresh baked muffins for him to try as she would create different flavors such as; oatmeal raisin, blueberry, banana nut, and strawberry. On this particular day Cliff just so happened to sit at the back of the bus and not the middle as he had gotten a bad feeling as he was about to sit down in the middle. When the bus came to the next stop Rosa got on and sat on the middle and looked back and waved at Cliff but she didn’t have any muffin today which was weird because she loved to bake and share them with her friends. The day before Rosa had gotten into a small argument with her husband because she started hanging around a young minister named Martin Luther King who was also married but Rosa’s husband didn’t like the fact that they had increasingly started to hang around each other as well as the rest of the group and it was starting to take up most of her time. They had started a small council of people who would try to implement change towards how blacks were treated in the world and they were also in talks about starting a movement. The reason Rosa didn’t have any muffins that day was because she and Dr King were on the phone most of the nigh talking about different plans to put into motion but neither of them would realize that there plan would be in motion as sooner than expected. Robert stopped the story he was telling his grand-kids so he could use the bathroom and when he got back hey were gone. They had went downstairs and got themselves some snacks. When they came back after a few minutes Robert had suddenly fell asleep in the chair with his head tilted sideways. The kids laughed and decided to prank him by wrapping toilet paper around his head and pouring hot sauce into his open mouth. After pouring the hot sauce in his mouth he awoke and startled them as he knocked the bottle to the ground as the glass broke and hot sauce was leaking from the side of his mouth. He stood up, started screaming erratically about how hot his mouth was and immediately ran to the kitchen to drink some water and milk. After he was done he cursed the kids and told them to clean up the mess or he would get his belt and if they didn’t know anything else they knew that grandpa Robert would whoop them if they didn’t listen. The kids finished cleaning up the glass and wasted hot sauce and while they were cleaning Robert had moved to the living room and started watching a show on the TV. They told him they were done and aggravated him until he continued the story because even though they were young they liked hearing about the civil rights movement. Robert sighed and said fine. So Robert picked up where he left off. The day after the night Rosa talked to Mr. King on the phone, the next morning Rosa and her husband had an argument and because of it she didn’t have time to bake her muffins. The bus stopped and Rosa got on and Cliff could see she was irritated and didn’t want to ask why she chose to sit in the middle of the bus rather than at the back. The bus proceeded to the next stop that would affect the entire world for years to come. The bus stopped and a group of white people got on and even though there were open seats towards the front of the bus they felt entitled and every chance they got they would use that privilege against blacks because at that time the segregation laws were in effect. So the went towards the middle of the bus and asked the blacks that were sitting there to move and almost all of them did but one and her name was Rosa Parks. She refused to move and hey looked at each other and threatened her. She replied and said that there were enough seats for them to sit down beside her or they could use the seats towards the front that were unoccupied and they were in disbelief. The bus driver hadn’t moved yet and decided to call the police because he was outraged. The police came and ask her to move and she again refused. After 30minutes they decided to arrest her for civil disobedience. At that time not many people spoke out towards the disrespect endured to black people, mostly because of what happened to Emmett Till a few months earlier. He didn’t want to give them a horrid visual so he just told them that Emmett Till was a 14year old boy who was lynched by a couple of white guys because he said something to a white girl and his mother had an open casket funeral to show the public what happened to her son. He told them that many people believe that these events started the civil rights movement but it wasn’t true but those events did spark an uprising that made it happen a lot sooner than planned. The next day after he found out Rosa was in jail Dr. King led a march through down the streets of Albany, Georgia. The kids stopped him and asked how did he know what happened on the bus and it wasn’t in the history books and he told them that he was one of the man that had moved out his seat for the white man. Then they stated that how come he didn’t stay like Rosa and he said that the only reason Rosa stayed was because she was mad at her husband and she wasn’t in a charitable mood. After the march a boycott was started and it went on for over a year in which Rosa had lost her job but they said it wasn’t because of her incident but anybody who believed that would be foolish. Robert stopped the story and told them that for the next part they would need to know that he was a deacon in the church at the time and wasn’t on board with the nonviolent approach by Dr. King and that he often sided with Malcolm X and his approach on defending yourself by any means necessary. When he was a young boy he had got in trouble for striking a white officer who grabbed his mother by the arm and he was struck hard in the side of the head by a baton. The kids sympathized for a minute and asked for him to continue the story. Of course he sighed. He began and said in 1956 Dr. King had sent out letters for the deacons and reverend’s of black churches to meet in Atlanta, Georgia but he denied him at first until he saw what effect the non-violence approach was having on society and it was actually sparking change as more people stepped up. So in January of 1957 he decided to go to the meeting but ended up being a day late but Dr. King welcomed him anyway because he was ecstatic that Robert had changed his mind. The meeting was to coordinate protests across the country. After the meeting Dr. King had asked him to stay a while longer so they could chat and he asked what made Robert change his mind. Robert replied that he saw how society was slowly changing and he wanted to be a part of that change. After talking with him some more Robert and Dr. King parted ways but as Robert was getting in his car Martin stopped him and asked if he would like to grab a bite to eat with him and his wife. Now Robert didn’t feel comfortable being a third wheel and he still was uneasy about the decision to join the non-violent cause but what happened during the dinner changed his life forever. The kids were now tuned completely in as they wanted to hear more about the life changing experience Robert had with Dr. King. He met the king’s at the restaurant and they were talking having a good time when a lady came over to join them. Robert described her as the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She had on a long red dress with the hairstyle of Bette McLaurin who was a songstress at the time. The lady was a friend of Ms. King; her name was Lynnette. The kids awed because Lynnette was their grandmother’s name who had just passed a few months ago which is why Robert was now staying with them. He stood up and kissed her hand and told her how beautiful she was. What Robert didn’t know at the time was that Dr. King had set this up within the hour. After his conversation with Robert at the meeting and inviting him, he called his wife and asked her to invite her friend that was visiting. Many people don’t know but Dr. King was a match maker thanks to his wife. During the dinner the conversation shifted from the four off them talking to just Robert and Lynette conversing and then they decided to dance together and during that dance is when he told his grand-kids he knew they would be together forever because no woman had ever gotten him to dance in public the way he was at the time. He had completely forgotten about the good Dr. and was purely focused on the gorgeous lady he was with. After that night he and Martin had become close friends, so close that he was promoted to one of the head leaders in Dr. King’s circle. Two major events happened in September of that year; the first was the little rock nine were blocked from integrating into central high school and a few days later president Eisenhower signed the civil rights act of 1957 which allowed federal prosecution of those who suppressed anothers right to vote. In December of the same year Robert proposed to Lynette and she said yes. They married in June the following year. On January 29^th of 1960 he was speaking at a college campus in Greensboro, North Carolina to a group of students which inspired the event of the days to follow. On February 1^st four students from the campus refused to leave a “whites only” lunch counter without being served. That event became known as the Greensboro sit in. More events happened over the next 3 years that were sparked by the overwhelming publicity from the movement and everyone knew they were a part of something great. August 28^th of 1963 Robert marched beside Martin along with 250,000 people in the march on Washington to deliver his speech “I have a dream speech.” Robert urged against the march in the days before because police officers were getting more violent but stayed to support his friend. After the speech they took a picture together. Sadly though he explained to his grand-kids that sometimes when something great happens it is followed by disaster and that’s what happened as on September 15^th a few weeks after the speech a church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama that killed 4 young girls and injured many others. They were outraged and more protests were sparked. Robert suggested they make a few protests directed towards discrimination in the workplace because of what happened to Rosa and because of what his pregnant wife was going through in her workplace. She was about 6 weeks pregnant. Robert’s wife birthed twins June of the next year. The kids stopped him for a bit and exclaimed with laughter that their aunt and uncle were old. The beginning of July president Johnson passed a law (the civil rights act of 1964) that prevented workplace discrimination due to race, color, sex, national origin, and religion. Robert had met Malcolm X a few times but since being Dr. King’s best friend now he hadn’t seen much of him. Malcolm reached out to Robert and asked if he could accompany him to a deliver a speech to the nation of Islam. He reiterated to the kids that every time something good happens something bad followed and that’s what happened as on February 21^st of 1965 as he was standing beside him he watched his old friend Malcolm X get assassinated as he was also hit by a bullet. This left him emotionally wounded for a few months as Dr. King visited him in the hospital a few times and his wife stood by his side until he recovered. This sparked the march known as Bloody Sunday(March 7, 1965) where 600 civil rights marchers walk to Selma, Alabama to Montgomery—the state’s capital—in protest of Black voter suppression where the police blocked and brutally attacked them. They finally reached Montgomery on March 25 as Dr. King had to fight the court for their right to march. After he recovered Robert focused on raising his family as he was giving up his time fighting in the movement as it was getting too unbearable. In the next couple of years Robert and Lynette had another child in 1968. Robert stopped the story and urged the kids that they needed to get to bed as their parents would be home soon and he didn’t want them to get in trouble. He said they were at the end and that he would finish after they got ready for bed. They washed up, brushed their teeth, got in their pajamas and got in the bed. He said alright this is the where the story ends. Robert continued and said that even though Dr. King knew he was done with the movement he urged him to accompany him to Memphis, Tennessee as he didn’t trust anyone else as much as he trusted Robert and that he would only be gone a couple days. Robert had just had another child but he decided to help his friend. In April while his daughter was 2 months old he left his wife to accompany his friend and promised he would only be gone a few days. On April 4^th 1968 during the morning his friend DR. Martin Luther King stepped onto the balcony to watch the sunrise. After a minute as Robert got dressed to join him all heard was a loud gunshot and as he ran to the balcony he saw his friend laying there dead. On April 11^th President Johnson signed the civil rights act of 1968. He said the end and his kids asked how did he deal with losing two of his best friends like that and he said that he deals with it every day and that focusing on his family helps. The story was over and it was past the kids bedtime as he heard a car pull up and one of the kids said how do we know that your story was real and he pulled out his wallet and showed them a picture of him and Dr. King posing for a picture at the end of the I have a dream speech in Washington. Their parents came home and asked how things went and that they had just came back from watching the Malcolm X movie in theaters and that’s when their kids jumped up and said Grandad told us the story about him meeting Malcolm X, Dr. King, and Rosa Parks.