Law professor Horace Cooper, a member of The National Center’s board of directors (and a founding member of Project 21), has a column on Rosa Parks posted at Townhall.com that I like a lot.

An excerpt:

But Rosa Parks was not the first black person in Montgomery to refuse to give up her seat; she was the first black person whose rights had been violated that the nascent civil rights movement was willing to stand behind… [She] was regarded as one of the finest citizens of Montgomery……The success in Montgomery transformed Dr. King into a nationally known figure and triggered other bus boycotts, ultimately igniting a nationwide assault on the injustice of segregation…

…Worse than perhaps the troubling trend towards an ever expanding definition of civil rights grievance and a glaring failure to acknowledge significant progress and achievements has been the civil rights community’s almost wholesale rejection of the notion of using the finest individuals or causes as occasions to promote their goals…

…Redefining civil rights to include a license for criminality, unjustified racial animus and even misogynistic gangsta lyrics has taken the noble cause of civil rights equality down an unfortunate path that must be reversed…

…We would be well served to remember Rosa Parks’ legacy. Decent and morally upright, she played a key role in a long, primarily nonviolent struggle to bring full civil rights and equality under the law to blacks in America.

That battle has largely been won. There is still more work to do. But as we wage the peace, it’s vital that it be done in a morally clear and unambiguous manner. To rephrase Paul Simon, “What’s that you say, Mrs. Robinson? Rosa Parks has left and gone away?” Let’s hope not.