> It helped the public perception of the movement at the time to have Rosa
> Parks portrayed as just a woman who got tired one day and decided not to
> give up her seat.
Last month I attended a demonstration here in Dublin against the ongoing deportations of Nigerian asylum seekers. One of the speakers, a middle-aged Irish union organiser, compared the Nigerian activists to Rosa Parks - who he described as "an elderly lady, tired from spending her whole day scrubbing her master's floors"!
His speech was so passionate, I just didn't have the heart to approach him afterwards and explain his errors ...