A glance a Twitter shows that Rosa Parks is trending. But it’s not her birthday, or the anniversary of her famous bus voyage. Nope. The Civil Rights Movement icon’s name is at the tip of everyone’s fingers today because of the armed men who took over a federal building in Oregon.
A Twitter account that is attributed to Ammon Bundy, the leader of the group, posted the following message:
We are doing the same thing as Rosa Parks did. We are standing up against bad laws which dehumanize us and destroy our freedom.
— Ammon Bundy (@Ammon_Bundy) January 6, 2016
But MSNBC reporter Tony Dokoupil is now reporting that the account, which sprang up on January 3, is not actually run by Bundy.
People, Ammon Bundy is not operating a twitter account. I stood with him last night as tweets supposedly from him went out.
— tonydokoupil (@tonydokoupil) January 6, 2016
But that hasn’t stopped the Internet from reacting to the juxtaposition of a freedom fighter and a man with a gun.
Nice try. Rosa Parks didn’t hijack a bus with an assault rifle because she didn’t want to pay the bus fare. @Ammon_Bundy
— Matthew Chapman (@fawfulfan) January 6, 2016
Newly discovered photo of the #RosaParks bus-jacking of 1955… #OregonUnderAttack pic.twitter.com/zlgKuluHye
— Goldie Taylor (@goldietaylor) January 6, 2016
Rosa Parks and Ammon Bundy actually have a lot in common both human same number of arms and legs weakness for hats
— Adam Serwer (@AdamSerwer) January 6, 2016
…only if Rosa Parks had set fires to cover her tracks, commandeered a federal facility and vowed violence if forced to comply w/ the law.
— Goldie Taylor (@goldietaylor) January 6, 2016