Rosa Parks always said she wasn’t trying to start a revolution or a movement, she was just tired and wanted to sit down.

I remember being in the back of my parents’ red 1959 Ford station wagon with wood sidewalls driving through Jackson, MS, as a race riot swirled around us. Mom was driving and Dad was in Oklahoma and we were scared to death. Mom made us duck down, but I was too curious not to look and see police with dogs chasing black kids.

I remember seeing good drinking fountains with chilled water marked “Whites” and tap water fountains marked “colored”.

I remember when the first black was admitted to OU law school — after a U.S. Supreme Court order made them do it. Then, when they tried to isolate that budding lawyer, another U.S. Supreme Court order made the school let Ada Louise Sipuel attend class with white students.

I remember when Professor George Henderson had to have the OU president’s secretary act as a “strawman” in order to buy a home in Norman and then move in under cover of darkness.

I remember the boycott and sit in at Bishop’s cafe downtown Oklahoma City.

I remember when integrated schools were a utopian dream.

I remember when blacks could only live in certain areas of town and couldn’t get home loans from local banks.

I remember Jackie Robinson, Gayle Sayes and Greg Pruitt, all racial barrier breakers.

I remember the “I Have a Dream” speech when it was first delivered.

I remember kids being blown up and Freedom Marchers being butchered by policemen.

I remember my fellow citizens petitioning, demanding and demonstrating for the simple right of voting, of self government.

I remember Rosa Parks.

I’m very sad.