Rosa Parks is dead. The next generation of civil rights heroes must be white people.

This morning, I got an email about the death of Rosa Parks.

 

“I’m 46,” the man wrote. “It’s hard for me to imagine that only 50 years ago prejudice was so rampant. I feel good about the progress that’s been made, but I also know that prejudice is still alive: stagnant and dormant in some people and ‘in your face’ in others. As a modern civil people, we must continue to fight prejudice, stand up against intolerance, and educate our youth about the importance of acceptance.”

 

“Where are the heroes of today?” he continued. “We need another Rosa Parks. We need another Martin Luther King. We need to do a lot more than what we have been doing.”

 

What we actually need, I replied quietly, are more white people who are willing to be civil rights heroes.