I think of a seamstress, a member of the Dexter Avenue Baptist church, a devoted Christ follower, who believed that Jesus had something to teach a segregated world about love and justice and community. One morning in December of 1955, a bus driver told her she must vacate her seat and move to the back of the bus because she was an African American and a white person needed the seat. In one of the most courageous choices of the twentieth century, she did not move. And she started a revolution. The next Monday night 10,000 followers of Christ gathered together at her church to pray and to ask God, "What do we do next?"

Because of that choice, a revolution started that was not easy; it had a high cost; many were beaten; many were imprisoned; some even died. But it changed the conscience of a nation. It didn't change it enough, but it changed it. All because a mild-mannered, soft-spoken, Christ-following seamstress got out of the boat.