Introduction to Quiet. Business example
Description
Vocal Characteristics
Language
EnglishVoice Age
Middle Aged (35-54)Accents
North American (General)Transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
quiet. The power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking. By Susan Cain. INTRODUCTION The North and South of Temperament Montgomery, Alabama December 1st, 1955 Early evening, a public bus pulls to a stop in. A sensibly dressed woman in her forties gets on. She carries herself directly despite having spent the day bent over an ironing board in a dingy basement tailor shop at the Montgomery Fair Department store. Her feet are swollen, her shoulders ache. She sits in the front row of the colored section and watches quietly as the bus fills with writers until the driver orders her to give her seat to a white passenger. The woman utters a single word that ignites one of the most important civil rights protests of the 20th century. One word that helps America find it's better self. The word is no. The driver threatens to have her arrested. You may do that, says Rosa Parks. A police officer arrives. He asks Parks why she won't move. Why do you will push us around? She answers simply. I don't know, he says, but the law is the law, and you're under arrest. On the afternoon of her trial and conviction for disorderly conduct. The Montgomery Improvement Association holds a rally for parks at the Whole Street Baptist Church in the poorest section of town. 5000. Gathered to support parks is lonely act of courage. They squeeze inside the church until its pews can hold no more. The rest wait patiently outside, listening through loudspeakers, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr addresses the crowd. There comes a time that people get tired of being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression, he tells them. There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the glittering sunlight of Life's July and left standing, admits to the piercing chill oven Alpine November. He praises parks, bravery and hugs her. She stands silently, her mere presence enough to galvanize the crowd. The association launches a citywide bus boycott that lasts 381 days. The people trudge miles, toe work. They carpool with strangers. That changed the course of American history. I had always imagined Rosa Parks as a stately woman with a bold temperament, someone who could easily stand up to a busload of glowering passengers. But when she died in 2005 at the age of 92 the flood of obituaries recalled her as soft spoken, sweet and small in stature. They said she was timid and shy but had the courage of a lion. They were full of phrases like radical humility and quiet fortitude. What does it mean to be quiet and have fortitude? These descriptions asked implicitly. How could you be shy and courageous? Parks herself seemed aware of this paradox, calling her autobiography Quiet Strength, a title that challenges us to question our assumptions. Why shouldn't quiet be strong? And what else can quiet do that we don't give it credit for?