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Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can ... - WordPress.com

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she got back on that bus, accord<strong>in</strong>g toBr<strong>in</strong>kley, only out <strong>of</strong> sheerabsentm<strong>in</strong>dedness.Parks’s actions that day were braveand s<strong>in</strong>gular, but it was <strong>in</strong> the legal falloutthat her quiet strength truly shone.Local civil rights leaders sought her outas a test case to challenge the city’s buslaws, press<strong>in</strong>g her to file a lawsuit. Thiswas no small decision. Parks had asickly mother who depended on her; tosue would mean los<strong>in</strong>g her job and herhusband’s. It would mean runn<strong>in</strong>g thevery real risk <strong>of</strong> be<strong>in</strong>g lynched from“the tallest telephone pole <strong>in</strong> town,” asher husband and mother put it. “Rosa,the white folks will kill you,” pleadedher husband. “It was one th<strong>in</strong>g to be arrestedfor an isolated bus <strong>in</strong>cident,”writes Br<strong>in</strong>kley; “it was quite another,as historian Taylor Branch would put it,182/929

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