We lack the spiritual fire, the eloquence,...

We lack the spiritual fire, the eloquence, that a Martin Luther King Jr. or a Jesse Jackson could bring to the subject of Rosa Parks, who will appear at a book signing and reception at the Museum of African-American Art today beginning at 2 p.m.

By now, the familiar story has passed into legend: The year is 1955. The city is Montgomery, Ala., where segregation rules supreme. Mrs. Parks, a seamstress, is tired as she boards a bus and sits. She is told to give up her seat to a white passenger. She refuses and is arrested. The action sparks a year-long black boycott of the bus company, and the civil rights movement is born.

The story still retains a beautiful simplicity, and the power to strike a chord inside many people. For who has not faced a bully? But easily overlooked is the incredible courage it must’ve taken Mrs. Parks to say No, I won’t-- on that day, in that city, at that time.

Perhaps the bus’s destination read Main Street or Broad Boulevard or Waterfront Road.

No matter. It really said Freedom.

The museum is located at the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza, Crenshaw and Martin Luther King Jr. boulevards, Los Angeles. Admission is free. For information call (213) 294-7071.