Epilogue: Give Yourself Permission To Live Your Life

In the epilogue, I reflect on the quiet, world-changing courage of Rosa Parks and how one small, brave act can ripple far beyond a single moment. Her story is a reminder that permission often begins with a simple “no” or a quiet stand for what’s right. We all have moments where we can choose to be that brave—for ourselves and others. This chapter is an invitation to find your own Rosa Parks moment, to claim your seat, and to live your life with quiet strength and purpose.

Epilogue: Rosa Parks: 'Give Yourself Permission to Live Your Life', written and read by Priya Rana Kapoor (Balboa Press), ©2014/2025 Priya Rana Kapoor

Transcript

Epilogue.

Most people have heard the name Rosa Parks.

In 1955,

Mrs.

Parks was traveling home from work on a bus in Montgomery,

Alabama,

When a white bus driver told her to leave her seat and give it to a white passenger,

Because all the seats in the white section of the bus were filled.

Mrs.

Parks,

Whose dream was already of an America in which all citizens were treated equally,

Regardless of color,

Refused.

And in that moment,

The civil rights movement started to coalesce around her.

At the time of her arrest,

Rosa Parks was working as a seamstress and holding down a voluntary position as the secretary of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People,

The NAACP.

She had trained in the field of workers' rights and racial equality.

Her dream must have been pretty clearly defined.

On the bus,

By holding the intention of the relatively small goal of not giving up her seat to someone just because he was white and she was not,

She ignited a flame that is still burning to this day.

Many years later,

When she shared the events of that day,

She said,

When that white driver stepped back toward us,

When he waved his hand and ordered us up and out of our seats,

I felt a determination cover my body like a quilt on a winter night.

Mrs.

Parks went on to receive the NAACP's Spingarn Medal in 1979,

The Presidential Medal of Freedom,

And the Congressional Gold Medal.

In the 1980s,

By the time she was approaching retirement age,

Mrs.

Parks was involved in setting up a scholarship fund for university students and bus tours that taught a new generation about the civil rights movement.

Her memoir,

Quiet Strength,

Was published in 1995.

Mrs.

Parks passed away in 2005.

She was the first woman to lie in honor in the US Capitol Rotunda.

Flags were flown at half-mast in America on the day of her funeral.

Today,

A statue of her sits in the US Capitol's National Statuary Hall.

Whilst we might not all play a pivotal role in human and civil rights as Rosa Parks did,

We can all follow her example.

As an intelligent,

Engaged woman living in America in a time of crippling social division,

Her dream was of a nation in which all citizens were treated equally.

Rosa Parks did not assume her personal goal to be the transformation of a whole society,

But she was able to take small and meaningful steps towards this,

And to take personal responsibility for her own actions.

In her case,

One brave gesture,

Her realized goal not to relinquish her bus seat,

Did not go unnoticed.

It was the catalyst for a movement that changed the face of American society.

It started in 1955,

When one small woman gave herself permission to say no.