A powerful and compelling picture of President Obama sitting on Rosa Parks’ bus


Originally published on Examiner.com on April 22, 2012

President Barack Obama was fund raising in Dearborn, Michigan on Wednesday April 18, 2012 while visiting the Henry Ford Museum which is home to countless historical artifacts including the limousine that President John F. Kennedy was riding in when he was tragically shot November 22nd, 1963 and the chair President Abraham Lincoln was sitting in when he was shot on April 14th, 1865.

The museum also boasts ownership of the bus that Rosa Parks famously and courageously made her stand for equality on, on December 1st, 1955. Parks has said in the past she was not trying to start a movement, but only stand up for her dignity.

This is why the image released by The White House of President Barack Obama sitting on the very bus, 56 years later, is so powerful and moving for millions of people across the nation. Perhaps because they recognize that if circumstances were different, and the American experiment had failed that it is possible it could have been the president on the bus that day.

After sitting on the bus, the president was asked what he was thinking about. He said,”I just sat in there for a moment and pondered the courage and tenacity that is part of our very recent history but is also part of that long line of folks who sometimes are nameless, often times didn’t make the history books, but who constantly insisted on their dignity, their share of the American dream.”