There's a massive moment for you.

Asked mom about them, because on the military base there was no such distinction for black vs white at water fountains, bathrooms, etc.... Those and the KKK signs had me confused.

This was in the early 60's.

I was young but I remember the 2 water fountains with signs. The signs said 'colored' and 'white.'

I always went to the one that said 'colored.' I was more than a little miffed when a rainbow of water didn't come out. I expected to see magical water that was red, green, blue and many more hues.

Still disappointed.......

...and, yes, I remember those signs...

Imagine what she felt in that moment of confrontation? But, there were black women doing it all over town. It was a planned campaign and she won the lottery in that she was the first person to run into a racist douche. But, still her courage is undeniable.

who dared to speak truth to power.

edit to correct typo

When President Obama visited Detroit on a campaign swing last year, he stopped by the museum and White House Photographer Pete Souza captured the President sitting in the bus--but, significantly, not in Rosa Parks' seat. The President took the seat behind...


Pete Souza / The White House

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/04/picture-of-the-day-obama-sits-on-the-rosa-parks-bus/256112/

...or at least a day of celebrations and remembrances.

But probably fed up with the bullshit too...which is part of what it takes to change things.

who was a career Marine gunnery Sargent. To listen to what they went through to travel in the South was shameful. Eating in back alleys behind restaurants. Even home, when my wife's older brother wanted to eat at a certain local cafeteria for his birthday, they did not want to explain to him that it was a "whites only" restaurant. In the end, they knew someone who worked there. They set up a table for him in the kitchen so he could have his birthday wish. Many more stories, crazy! My wife inspects many different businesses for the State of Texas. 3 years ago she inspected a rural Barbershop. The restrooms still said "White" and "colored." The 80 year old barber said he never got around to painting over it b/c "colored folk don't come in here anymore!"

We pulled into a local food joint around dark, it was cold outside, I think we were in Louisiana.
By the side parking lot, sitting on in the open passenger seat of a pickup, was a black man eating a sandwich or hamburger, something like that.
It was not till I went to the restrooms around the back and saw the signs that it hit me why he was eating outside in the cold.
For a young girl from the Pac. NW, it was a terrible shock to see racism for the first time.
Not that we did not have racism, just that I was so oblivious to it in my small home town.

And then to move to Ala. for the entire year of 1964....the atmosphere down here was so tense even I could feel it, and I was hardly an aware person at that time.

Now, today, down here, racism still exists, but is much more covert.