* * * * *

. . . .she was on the receiving committee to meet Nelson Mandela in 1990 in Detroit. She expressed embarrassment that she had come, repeating: "He won't know me." When Mr Mandela glimpsed her he chanted "Ro-sa Parks, Ro-sa Parks, Ro-sa Parks" and then the two aged activists fell into each other's arms and rocked backwards and forwards.

* * * * *

Rosa Parks died penniless.

Looking over her life, it appears that she would only have had the one job, with Conyers, where she would have been covered by any kind of retirement (1965 --1988). It seems now that it was likely a part-time job. She was 52 when she started. She would have been 75 when she retired. One year before retirement she founded and worked for (likely without pay) The Rosa & Raymond Parks Institute For Self Development.

Raymond Parks was a barber, Rosa a seamstress. Both self employed. Neither likely to have paid any Social Security. I have a friend, my age, who mostly raised children and was self employed. She receives $27 a month from Social Security.

There are those who say Rosa should have been "helped" ~~ in fact, she was, by her church, by her landlord. But no one talks of the emotional cost of being the one who is helped. Charity feels lovely to those giving it, and pretty bad to those receiving it. Most decline to be on the receiving end if they can possibly help it. How uncharitable to those who wish to feel good about themselves.

This is the richest country in the world (for the time being). Would it be so much to ask that we simply let no one die penniless, and with their self esteem intact?