Women making waves
March is Women’s History Month, a chance to raise awareness of, commemorate, discover, document and celebrate the lives and achievements of extraordinary women.
Today, in celebration of both the ongoing value of letters and a woman who changed history, we’re sharing another famous letter from Simon Sebag Montefiore’s fascinating new anthology: Written in History - Letters that changed the world.
The below letter was written by Rosa Parks, the ‘mother of the civil rights movement’ in America, best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott, to Jessica Mitford.
Rosa Parks was already an activist when she took on the racist law in Montgomery, Alabama, that ordered the segregation of white and black people on local buses. This was just one of the infamous ‘Jim Crow’ laws brought in throughout the southern states in the early 20h century, enforcing repression of black people, even though slavery had been abolished 40 years earlier.
In December 1955, Parks refused to give up her seat in the ‘coloured’ section of the bus she was travelling in to a white passenger when the ‘white’ section was full. She was arrested and the case was used in the subsequent legal challenge against segregation that was won in November 1956.
While the case was ongoing, before its outcome was known, Parks wrote to a ‘Mrs Treuhaft,’ who is better known as Jessica Mitford, the most radical of the six daughters of the English nobleman Lord Redesdale, who at the time, was married to Robert Treuhaft, a civil rights lawyer living in California.
Dear Mrs Treuhaft…we are having a difficult time here, but we are not discouraged. The increased pressure seems to strengthen us for the next blow.
My first case was heard in the Circuit Court February 22, I was found guilty and sentenced to 70 days in jail. The appeal was made to the State Supreme Court. I was immediately arrested again with the leaders of the bus protest.
We have received very generous contributions from around the country, although no specific appeal has been made through the mail.
The widespread publicity we are getting is most disturbing to the local governing group. They resent outside interference. Therefore, I will have to take the matter of direct appeal to the Montgomery Improvement Association…
Sincerely yours, Rosa L. Parks.
While our business continues to change, letters are still very important to us and will remain so in the future. Today, we still deliver almost 13 letters for every one parcel, and the UK sends more letters per head than anyone else in Europe, bar Germany.
Throughout this month on myroyalmail.com we’ll be sharing more stories of ordinary and extraordinary women, including former colleagues, who faithfully served as postwomen for the General Post Office (GPO).
