This biography examines Parks's life and 60 years of activism and
brings the multifaceted, decades-long civil rights movement in the
North and South to life for young readers.
Rosa Parks is one of
the most well-known Americans today, but much of what is known and
taught about her is incomplete, distorted, and just plain wrong. In
this young readers' edition of the NAACP Image Award--winning The
Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, Jeanne Theoharis shatters the
myths that Parks was meek, accidental, tired, or middle class. She
reveals a lifelong freedom fighter whose activism began two decades
before her historic stand that sparked the Montgomery bus boycott and
continued for 40 years after. Readers will understand what it was
like to be Parks, from meeting her husband, Raymond, who showed her
the possibility of collective activism, to her years of frustrated
struggle before the boycott, to the decade of suffering that followed
for her family after her bus arrest. The book follows Parks to
Detroit, after her family was forced to leave Montgomery, Alabama,
where she spent the second half of her life and reveals her activism
alongside a growing Black Power movement and beyond.
Because Rosa Parks
was active for 60 years, in the North as well as the South, her story
provides a broader and more accurate view of the Black freedom
struggle across the 20th century. Theoharis shows young readers how
the national fable of Parks and the civil rights movement--celebrated
in schools during Black History Month--has warped what we know about
Parks and stripped away the power and substance of the movement. The
Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks illustrates how the movement
radically sought to expose and eradicate racism in jobs, housing,
schools, and public services, as well as police brutality and the
over-incarceration of Black people--and how Rosa Parks was a key
player throughout.
Rosa Parks placed
her greatest hope in young people--in their vision, resolve, and
boldness to take the struggle forward. As a young adult, she
discovered Black history, and it sustained her across her life. The
Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks will help do that for a new
generation.