The Mark of a Leader
VOLUME 8

Welcome to Volume 8 of The Mark of a Leader E-zine.

We were privileged to be featured in a star-studded lineup at Mark Victor Hansen's MegaSpeaking event in Los Angeles this month.

MegaSpeaking is an annual conference which brings together many of the world's leading motivational speakers and hundreds of industry experts and aspiring speakers. It is a powerful forum for learning, sharing ideas, and discovering what's new.

Thanks to Mark and his team for sharing the stage and letting us inspire people on all three days of the event.

Thanks also this month to one of our first clients, CIM (Consumer Impact Marketing) with whom we recently worked on our second annual all-employee meeting. CIM has been a big supporter of THE MARK OF A LEADER for over a year, using us to tell stories every month throughout the year and working with us to build their internal reward and recognition program. Thanks to everyone at CIM. YOU ROCK!!

This month in our E-zine , we recognize the amazing Rosa Parks, whose simple act of defiance literally changed the world.

Have a great month!


Doug Keeley
President and Chief Storyteller

Please visit our website at www.themarkofaleader.com
FEATURE

DID YOU KNOW?

Sumerians invented writing in the 4th century BC.



It is estimated that 2 billion people still cannot read.



Vincent Van Gogh only sold one painting while he was alive - to his brother.

ROSA PARKS - 1913-2005
THE SPARK THAT LIT A FIRE

Can one person change the world?
You betcha.

Nearly fifty years ago, a 42 year old tailors' assistant at a department store was arrested and fined $10 dollars plus $4 dollars court costs for refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama city bus.

Her name was Rosa Parks.

Rosa grew up in the violent and bigoted world of the Southern U.S. "Back then, we didn't have any civil rights. It was just a matter of survival, of existing from one day to the next." Parks explained, "I remember going to sleep as a girl hearing the Klan ride at night and hearing a lynching and being afraid the house would burn down."

The state's segregation laws were epitomized by the Montgomery city bus policy: 'coloreds' sat at the back, whites at the front.

Got it?
Well, nothing is that simple.

QUOTABLE QUOTES

"You can't live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you."

John Wooden



"Don't play what's there, play what's not there."

Miles Davis

You see the line between the white and 'colored' section was moveable. It was denoted by a simple card, which the driver placed at a row to separate the two sections. If the white section filled up, he simply moved the card back and the people sitting in the front rows of the 'colored' section were told to stand up to give their seat to a white person.

On December 1st, 1955 after a long day of work at the department store, Rosa Parks boarded the bus on Cleveland Avenue. She took a seat in the first row of the 'colored' section.

"I did not get on the bus to get arrested; I got on the bus to go home," she said.

As the bus went along its route, the 'white-only' section filled up. The driver approached the four people in the front row of the colored section and said "Let me have these seats".

Three people moved. Rosa did not.
She had simply had enough of being treated like a second class citizen.

So she was arrested.

"I only knew, as I was being arrested, that it was the very last time that I would ever ride in humiliation of this kind."

Bail was posted. Meetings were held. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. got involved.

A day later, 35,000 handbills were distributed in Montgomery's black schools simply asking the following:

"We are... asking every Negro to stay off the buses Monday in protest of the arrest and trial... You can afford to stay out of school for one day. If you work, take a cab, or walk. But please, children and grown-ups don't ride the bus at all on Monday. Please stay off the buses Monday."

DID YOU KNOW?

The expression "getting someone's goat" is based on the custom of keeping a goat in the stable with a racehorse as the horse's companion. The goat becomes a settling influence on the thoroughbred. If you owned a competing horse and were not above some dirty business, you could steal your rival's goat (seriously, it's been done) to upset the other horse and make it run a poor race. From goats and horses it was linguistically extended to people: in order to upset someone, get their goat.

It rained on the Monday, yet the black people of Montgomery stayed off the buses. They stayed off for 381 days.

Since the black community represented 66% of the city's bus customers, the transit system teetered on bankruptcy. They city was forced to capitulate, and the segregation bylaws were rescinded.

It was the spark that lit the fire of the civil rights movement, changing the face of America and the world.

Not surprisingly, Rosa was besieged with death threats and forced to move to Detroit, where she stayed until her death in late October at the age of 92.

In life Rosa Parks was one of the most decorated civil rights activists, and was named one of Time magazine's top twenty most influential and iconic figures of the 20th century. She became the 1st woman to ever lay in honor in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda.

At her funeral, Former President Clinton said "The world knows of Rosa Parks because of a single, simple act of dignity and courage that struck a lethal blow to the foundations of legal bigotry".

Rosa Parks was an unexpected and improbable warrior that led an unlikely army of waitresses, street sweepers, shop keepers, and auto mechanics to challenge the status quo, break free from their imposed caste, and ultimately overcome.

Thank you Rosa for your tremendous courage, and for your enduring and unforgettable lesson.
 

Please visit us at www.themarkofaleader.com.

Copyright 2005 Mark of a Leader