Manifestation: Sean Penn in Iran, Day One

Monday, August 22, 2005

At 3:26 AM, David said...: I read Sean Penn's article. It was interesting. I think that I would like to read the rest of his series on Iran. I didn't know it was so difficult for an American to get through Iranian customs. I can identify with his remark about Rosa Parks and the back of the bus. Having grown up mostly in Alabama, I am quite familiar with Ms. Parks who is also from Alabama. She was an instrumental figure in the American Civil Rights movement of the 50's and 60's. Sometime in the 1950's she defied the law that required all black people to sit in the back of the bus in Alabama. She was arrested which triggered a boycott of the buses by black people. Ultimately, the law was struck down. It wasn't just the buses either, blacks were not allowed to eat in restaurants with whites. There were black only bathrooms and water fountains. The school systems were segregated by race. Blacks were prohibited from voting in many places too. Nearly all of these race restrictions took place in the formerly Confederate (Civil War Era) States of the southeastern U.S. I think that Iran needs its own version of Ghandi or Martin Luther King Jr.