Rosa Parks Trained for That Bus: Why Peace Is a Practice, Not a Mood

Send us Fan MailPeacemaking is a skill you train, not a mood you hope to be in. Karen brings a confession: a moment when she spoke unkindly about someone and then asked to re-enter the room and try again, and turns it into a bigger idea: nonviolence and accountability are practiced, not performed. She and Jonelle trace how Rosa Parks trained under Septima Clark at Highlander before the boycott, why role-play changes behavior when intentions don't, and how Mia Mingus' four parts of accountability make a real apology repeatable. They sit with appropriation and attribution, and land on the WAIT practice: why am I talking?Calls to ActionTry Karen's re-entering-the-room practice this week. If a conversation leaves you uneasy about who you were in it, go back and ask someone to let you try again out loud. Repair is a skill, and it gets stronger with reps.Adopt the WAIT check from the White Woman Whisperer: before you speak in a hard moment, ask yourself, why am I talking? Is it helping me grow, or taking up space someone else should have?Pick one nonviolence or peacemaking resource and actually start it: read the book White Women by Regina Jackson and Saira Rao; read Kazu Haga's Healing Resistance; or sign up for non-violence training. When you learn these tools, ask where they came from and credit the civil rights lineage that built them.We would love to hear from you! Contact us at [email protected] Notes: The Rosa Parks history comes from the Stanford King Institute and the Rosa Parks biography archive. She trained 2 weeks at Highlander Folk School under Septima Clark months before the boycott. The re-entering the room framework traces back to Mia Mingus' 4 Parts of Accountability on her blog, Leaving Evidence. The science on rehearsal building real skill faster than talk alone comes from a 2025 randomized trial on Behaviour Research and Therapy. The modern nonviolence tradition comes from Kazu Haga's Healing Resistance and the Kingian Nonviolence Curriculum. And if you want somewhere to practice this yourself, check out the Telos Group's Principles and Practices of Peacemaking.Support the show