What do you think?
Rate this book
The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks
The definitive political biography of Rosa Parks examines her six decades of activism, challenging perceptions of her as an accidental actor in the civil rights movement
Presenting a corrective to the popular notion of Rosa Parks as the quiet seamstress who, with a single act, birthed the modern civil rights movement, Theoharis provides a revealing window into Parks’s politics and years of activism. She shows readers how this civil rights movement radical sought—for more than a half a century—to expose and eradicate the American racial-caste system in jobs, schools, public services, and criminal justice.
Presenting a corrective to the popular notion of Rosa Parks as the quiet seamstress who, with a single act, birthed the modern civil rights movement, Theoharis provides a revealing window into Parks’s politics and years of activism. She shows readers how this civil rights movement radical sought—for more than a half a century—to expose and eradicate the American racial-caste system in jobs, schools, public services, and criminal justice.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published January 29, 2013
About the author
Jeanne Theoharis
17 books106 followersJeanne Theoharis is professor of political science at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. She received an AB in Afro-American studies from Harvard College and a PhD in American culture from the University of Michigan. She is the author or coauthor of four books and articles on the black freedom struggle and the contemporary politics of race in the United States.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 207 reviews
June 6, 2020
Jeanne Theoharis is a straightforward scholar and committed progressive whose purpose is to reveal Rosa Parks as the lifelong lefty she undoubtedly was, but Theoharis is also too good of a researcher and too dedicated to the truth not to reveal the many biographical ironies in Mrs. Parks' story. I'm a progressive too--one of the quieter, more contemplative sort--and the presence of multiple ironies in this biography is one of its aspects I find most interesting.
The first irony is that the conventional mainstream view of Parks, the one that has turned her into a bland icon--St. Rosa the Simple, St. Rosa the Heroic, an archetypal "church lady," neither dangerous nor disturbing--was originally a public relations creation of the Montgomery civil rights establishment. Forever concerned with avoiding the "commie agitator" label and properly fearing the ever-present possibility of violence, they downplayed Parks' twenty years of left-wing activism (stretching back to the "Scottsboro Boys" era) and minimized their own organizational efforts.
The second irony is that the way the progressive community chooses to look at Rosa's action today--that it was merely one small, crucial link in a long chain of calculated activism--is based in part on the fabrications of her racist critics, who were eager to depict her as the tool of the Communist conspiracy. Although it is true that Parks was a lifelong activist who had received summer training at the left wing Highlander school on scholarship, and it is true that for some time the Montgomery civil rights community had been looking for the proper test case to institute a bus boycott, it is also true that on the fateful day Parks made her choice, she made it autonomously and spontaneously--magnificent in her solitariness, without the comfort of any clear plan. By seeking to elevate the status of community activism, this progressive analysis minimizes the transforming action of an authentic hero.
A third irony is that this pioneer of civil rights was minimized and mistreated both as a woman and a member of the working class by the middle class leaders--both male and female--of the civil rights movement. During the boycott, she was present on the dais, but not allowed to speak, and--during the years when she and her husband suffered financial hardship--in great part due to her activism--she was passed over for various paid positions in the movement in favor of better educated, middle class women.
A fourth irony: this legendary image of decorum, peace and meekness was a radical in her views and associations--much more radical than King. She was not herself a devotee of non-violence: although she believed it was a useful strategy for large protests, she thought it prudent for the individual activist to exercise the right to bear arms. Robert F. Williams, author of "Negroes with Guns" (1962)--opponent of non-violence and an important influence on the Black Panthers--was a friend of Rosa's. In her later years in Detroit, she developed an excellent relationship with young activists, adopting African dress and frequenting the local "Black Power" bookstore. In a late interview, a reporter asked her to name her own civil rights hero, and she replied, "Malcolm X."
A fifth irony: Rosa Parks, the social justice icon most associated with one grand gesture, forever frozen in that photo-op image staring out the window of a bus, was by nature an assiduous, self-effacing advocate for social justice, whose presence was habitual at meetings and who worked humbly for the cause. If Woody Allen is right, and "80% of success is showing up," then Mrs. Rosa Parks is the most successful figure in civil rights history. As the radicals of her adopted city of Detroit were fond of saying, whenever there was an event "she was always there."
Theoharis is not an inspired writer, but her style is clear, her facts are unspun, and her energy and industry as a researcher are indefatigable. She has produced a definitive public biography, one that every one interested in the Civil Rights Movement should read.
March 1, 2020
Like many of us, or so I believe, the only thing I remember about Rosa Parks was that she refused to give up her bus seat to a white man, despite being ordered to do so. That this started the bus boycott that would last for quite some time. Of course back then, my mind was on other things, and I didn't stop to think about, "the rest of the story," as the late Paul Harvey used to say.
So now, many moons later, I have filled in the missing gaps. There was so much more to this brave woman, than just one incident. She has been working for equality for some time before this incident, joining local groups and then the NCAAP. Her actions proved costly for those involved, loss of jobs, homes and suicides. She stated out a quiet protestor,and I loved watching her find her voice. MLK was also present, a new minister, also finding his voice, his true role, which wecall know led to his untimely murder.
Rosa eventually moves to the north, Detroit, as part of the black migration. She and I admit myself as well, was surprised that things for blacks were not much different than that in the South. She now had a new challenge on her hands. Terrific book.
Narrated by Judith West and she was wonderful.
So now, many moons later, I have filled in the missing gaps. There was so much more to this brave woman, than just one incident. She has been working for equality for some time before this incident, joining local groups and then the NCAAP. Her actions proved costly for those involved, loss of jobs, homes and suicides. She stated out a quiet protestor,and I loved watching her find her voice. MLK was also present, a new minister, also finding his voice, his true role, which wecall know led to his untimely murder.
Rosa eventually moves to the north, Detroit, as part of the black migration. She and I admit myself as well, was surprised that things for blacks were not much different than that in the South. She now had a new challenge on her hands. Terrific book.
Narrated by Judith West and she was wonderful.
February 17, 2020
African American History Month 2020 continues with Jeanne Theoharis’ scholarly biography of Rosa Parks, a book I have had on my radar since last year at this time. Rosa Parks is widely known as the “Mother of the Civil Rights Movement”. Generations of school children have been taught that Mrs Parks was a tired seamstress who refused to give up her seat on a bus, waking people up to injustice and precipitating an entire movement. Movies have been made about the this incident, and raps have used “going to the back of the bus” as a mantra for injustice. Rosa Parks was indeed a middle aged seamstress who refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus; yet, this image of her has been frozen in time. Jeanne Theoharis has set out to give people the complete picture of Rosa Parks, a woman who dedicated her life to the civil rights movement.
Rosa Parks was born on February 4, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama. Like many southern African American men of his generation, Rosa’s father could not find stable work to support his wife and children, so he disappeared. Rosa was raised by her mother Leona McCauley and her paternal grandparents. Growing up in this environment, Rosa learned about civil rights at an early age. Her grandfather was a proponent of Marcus Harvey’s Back to Africa movement, and he imparted the importance of being treated like a whole person to his grandchildren Rosa and Sylvester. Rosa’s upbringing lead her to marry Raymond Parks, a civil rights activist who had worked on the Scottsboro Boys case. This activism lead Rosa to be an early supporter of civil rights in Alabama even though Raymond feared for both their lives on a daily basis and encouraged her to not get involved. Rosa Parks was a doer and joined her husband in the NAACP, serving as her chapter’s secretary and giving her life to the organization. She was not one to be deterred by bomb threats and other attempts at her life for being an activist. Both Rosa and Raymond Parks gave tirelessly, and Raymond’s role, which came at the expense of steady employment and his health, is often overlooked in the struggle.
By 1955 the NAACP had been banned in the state of Alabama by white supremacists who feared the miscegenation of races. Rosa had made a name for herself as a tireless civil rights worker and was one of few African Americans who successfully registered to vote. Raymond, as a counsel for the Scottsboro Boys, was unsuccessful and never voted until the Parks’ moved north. In 1955, Rosa Parks and her ally in the movement E.D. Nixon, a Pullman Porter, had been ousted from local NAACP leadership by a slate of ministers who wanted the movement to center on church sermons and nonviolence. Although Rosa still lead youth councils and gave endless hours of her time, new leadership pushed her aside in favor of the dynamic young speaker, Dr King. Theoharis’ central thesis appears that Rosa Parks is forever known as a middle aged matron whereas Dr King received all of the credit for spearheading the movement. Most of the mentions of King and Parks’ relationship appears frosty at best as Theoharis attempts to paint the picture of Parks as a true leader who was forced to take a literal back seat to King due to her gender. As none of the principals here are alive to state their case, I am unsure what their working relationship was; however, on December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks was tired of being treated like a second class citizen and refused to move to the back of a Montgomery bus. This action, which had long been thought out, precipitated a year long bus boycott, which lead to Montgomery buses and eventually public places being desegregated. This singular event lead African Americans to thinking that yes we are tired of being treated like second class citizens and gave birth to a movement albeit one with Parks in the background.
During the boycott, Rosa Parks engaged in a national speaking tour to raise money for the boycotters and the NAACP. For the next ten years, neither Rosa or Raymond Parks was able to find employment and a criticism Theoharis gives is that the NAACP did not take care of her. Rosa’s brother Sylvester had moved to Detroit so the Parks’ along with Rosa’s mother followed him there in early 1957. Rosa became a loving aunt to Sylvester’s thirteen children and also became active in Detroit’s NAACP chapters. Still unable to find employment, she became the voice of the middle aged generation in the struggle for civil rights as the movement gained steam in the 1960s and 1970s. Theoharis contrasts northern racism with that in the south to show how Parks’ role in the struggle did not diminish after her move north. She could be on friendly terms with poets Gwendolyn Brooks and Maya Angelou as well as black power activists Angela Davis, Stokeley Carmichael, and Malcolm X. Being able to move fluidly within different branches of the civil rights movement shows that Rosa Parks gave tirelessly and would support anyone regardless of their view if it meant that in the end she would be treated as an equal person to whites.
Rosa Parks was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1999 for her life work as a civil rights activist. Her work lead her to work for Congressman John Conyers in Detroit and had her rub shoulders with luminary Nelson Mandela. Theoharis believes that the majority of people today only see Rosa Parks as the tired seamstress who was too tired to give up her seat on the bus. This image has been etched in time and has diminished Parks role in the civil rights movement in the years after the bus boycott. While reading this work, I learned much about the Rosa Parks who was so much more than a seamstress. I thought Theoharis was preachy and redundant in her agenda at times especially in regards to Mrs Parks relationship with Dr King; however, it is obvious that the author is a scholar who devoted much time to uncovering the “complete” Rosa Parks. For this I am grateful for learning about the woman who is only given a few lines in history books, a woman who gave her entire life to a movement.
4 stars
Rosa Parks was born on February 4, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama. Like many southern African American men of his generation, Rosa’s father could not find stable work to support his wife and children, so he disappeared. Rosa was raised by her mother Leona McCauley and her paternal grandparents. Growing up in this environment, Rosa learned about civil rights at an early age. Her grandfather was a proponent of Marcus Harvey’s Back to Africa movement, and he imparted the importance of being treated like a whole person to his grandchildren Rosa and Sylvester. Rosa’s upbringing lead her to marry Raymond Parks, a civil rights activist who had worked on the Scottsboro Boys case. This activism lead Rosa to be an early supporter of civil rights in Alabama even though Raymond feared for both their lives on a daily basis and encouraged her to not get involved. Rosa Parks was a doer and joined her husband in the NAACP, serving as her chapter’s secretary and giving her life to the organization. She was not one to be deterred by bomb threats and other attempts at her life for being an activist. Both Rosa and Raymond Parks gave tirelessly, and Raymond’s role, which came at the expense of steady employment and his health, is often overlooked in the struggle.
By 1955 the NAACP had been banned in the state of Alabama by white supremacists who feared the miscegenation of races. Rosa had made a name for herself as a tireless civil rights worker and was one of few African Americans who successfully registered to vote. Raymond, as a counsel for the Scottsboro Boys, was unsuccessful and never voted until the Parks’ moved north. In 1955, Rosa Parks and her ally in the movement E.D. Nixon, a Pullman Porter, had been ousted from local NAACP leadership by a slate of ministers who wanted the movement to center on church sermons and nonviolence. Although Rosa still lead youth councils and gave endless hours of her time, new leadership pushed her aside in favor of the dynamic young speaker, Dr King. Theoharis’ central thesis appears that Rosa Parks is forever known as a middle aged matron whereas Dr King received all of the credit for spearheading the movement. Most of the mentions of King and Parks’ relationship appears frosty at best as Theoharis attempts to paint the picture of Parks as a true leader who was forced to take a literal back seat to King due to her gender. As none of the principals here are alive to state their case, I am unsure what their working relationship was; however, on December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks was tired of being treated like a second class citizen and refused to move to the back of a Montgomery bus. This action, which had long been thought out, precipitated a year long bus boycott, which lead to Montgomery buses and eventually public places being desegregated. This singular event lead African Americans to thinking that yes we are tired of being treated like second class citizens and gave birth to a movement albeit one with Parks in the background.
During the boycott, Rosa Parks engaged in a national speaking tour to raise money for the boycotters and the NAACP. For the next ten years, neither Rosa or Raymond Parks was able to find employment and a criticism Theoharis gives is that the NAACP did not take care of her. Rosa’s brother Sylvester had moved to Detroit so the Parks’ along with Rosa’s mother followed him there in early 1957. Rosa became a loving aunt to Sylvester’s thirteen children and also became active in Detroit’s NAACP chapters. Still unable to find employment, she became the voice of the middle aged generation in the struggle for civil rights as the movement gained steam in the 1960s and 1970s. Theoharis contrasts northern racism with that in the south to show how Parks’ role in the struggle did not diminish after her move north. She could be on friendly terms with poets Gwendolyn Brooks and Maya Angelou as well as black power activists Angela Davis, Stokeley Carmichael, and Malcolm X. Being able to move fluidly within different branches of the civil rights movement shows that Rosa Parks gave tirelessly and would support anyone regardless of their view if it meant that in the end she would be treated as an equal person to whites.
Rosa Parks was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1999 for her life work as a civil rights activist. Her work lead her to work for Congressman John Conyers in Detroit and had her rub shoulders with luminary Nelson Mandela. Theoharis believes that the majority of people today only see Rosa Parks as the tired seamstress who was too tired to give up her seat on the bus. This image has been etched in time and has diminished Parks role in the civil rights movement in the years after the bus boycott. While reading this work, I learned much about the Rosa Parks who was so much more than a seamstress. I thought Theoharis was preachy and redundant in her agenda at times especially in regards to Mrs Parks relationship with Dr King; however, it is obvious that the author is a scholar who devoted much time to uncovering the “complete” Rosa Parks. For this I am grateful for learning about the woman who is only given a few lines in history books, a woman who gave her entire life to a movement.
4 stars
February 5, 2016
The author, Jeanne Theoharis, has written a scholarly work which provides insight into the lifetime activism of Rosa Parks. Most people only know of her arrest for refusing to give up her seat, to a white man, on a city bus, in Montgomery, Alabama, on December 1, 1955. However, Parks was active both before and after this heroic and historic event.
The book covers Parks' family background and early life. Further, information is detailed on the organizations that Parks worked with during her lifetime. Also, Theoharis addressed the impact Parks refusal to give up her seat on the bus had on Parks and her family.
I recommend this book to anyone who wishes a historical account of the life of Rosa Parks.
The book covers Parks' family background and early life. Further, information is detailed on the organizations that Parks worked with during her lifetime. Also, Theoharis addressed the impact Parks refusal to give up her seat on the bus had on Parks and her family.
I recommend this book to anyone who wishes a historical account of the life of Rosa Parks.
September 27, 2018
This book is a biography of Rosa Parks (1913-2005), she who is often called the “Mother of the Civil Rights Movement”. It was she who refused to get off the bus, refused to relinquish her seat to a white man on December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama. Two other black women and a black man did, but she didn’t! She remained in her seat—a forty-two-year-old black seamstress on her way home from work on a day like any other. She was a secretary at the Montgomery branch of the NAACP.
She was certainly not unique, others had done the same before her. Nine months previously, on March 2, 1955, and also in Montgomery, fifteen-year-old Clauette Colvin was pulled off a bus, manhandled by police and arrested for the same offence. Rosa knew what she was doing was dangerous, but she was fed up. Neighbors she knew were on the bus, but no one protested, stood up or offered to help her. None came to her defense!
It was said that she had tired feet, but this was not so. What she was was tired of injustice and tired of those who gave in and tired of the humiliation wreaked on Blacks. She had had her fill. She decided to take a stand through passive non-violent resistance.
Soft-spoken, respectable, demur and religiously devote, Rosa Parks was judged to be a woman whom the entire black community would stand behind, and so it was she who was promulgated and transformed into a symbol of black resistance. Nevertheless, her action was unplanned and of her own choice.
The book follows her from her youth. As a young child she learned a sense of black pride from her maternal grandparents with whom she and her mother lived. The book follows her through to her death in 2005 at the age of ninety-two. The book documents not merely the precise circumstance of the events on Dec 1, 1955, and the following 382-day bus boycott, but also her active role in the civil rights movement throughout her entire life. She and her family’s economic plight, personal sacrifices and physical and psychological suffering are all thoroughly documented. She is there at the Selma March in 1965. Having left Alabama for Detroit in 1957, she experienced first-hand racial injustice not only in the South but in the North too. Detroit was a city of segregated housing and schooling, job discrimination and police brutality. In the Detroit Riots of 1967, the barbershop where her husband Raymond was employed was vandalized.
Rosa Parks was a civil rights activist all through her life; she was active on fronts wherever injustice raised its ugly head. Her work alongside Martin Luther King. Jr., her opposition to the Vietnam War, her support of Malcolm X and the Black Power Movement, her support of Mandela and the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa are just a few examples of the political issues she involved herself in. On June 15, 1999, at the age of eighty-six, she received the Congressional Gold Medal. On receiving the medal from President Clinton, she said, “This medal is encouragement for all of us to continue until all have rights.” She may have been soft spoken, but she had courage and a will of steel.
The book is clearly well researched, but it should have been better edited. In the middle section, it is excessively repetitive. In the years following the boycott, Rosa Parks received little financial help and her notoriety made job opportunities within the white community scarce. Neither the NAACP nor the MIA (Montgomery Improvement Agency) offered her a job. Her pride and self-respect prevented her from asking for help. The difficulties she encountered are enumerated over and over again. While it is important that her travails are made known, having been obscured in the past, they need not be repeated, many times word for word, in the text here.
There are two long introductions at the beginning; they summarize the entire book. I would have preferred they had been put at the end. They are the first two chapters of the audiobook, if you perhaps wish to skip them or listen to then at the end.
The audiobook is very well narrated by Judith West. Just as Rosa was soft-spoken, so is West. In my view she does an exemplary rendition of how I imagine Rosa Sparks might have spoken. The narration is easy to follow, always clear and read at a good speed. Four stars from me for the narration.
I like this book and do recommend others to read it, despite insufficient editing and too much repetition. Rosa Parks was reticent by nature, but her actions speak volumes. I have learned not only what she did in her life but have also now a good grip on her personality.
*************************************
Related recommended books :
*Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America 4 stars
*Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age 4 stars
*Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America 4 stars
*Sterling Biographies®: Malcolm X: A Revolutionary Voice 4 stars
*While the World Watched: A Birmingham Bombing Survivor Comes of Age During the Civil Rights Movement 3 stars
She was certainly not unique, others had done the same before her. Nine months previously, on March 2, 1955, and also in Montgomery, fifteen-year-old Clauette Colvin was pulled off a bus, manhandled by police and arrested for the same offence. Rosa knew what she was doing was dangerous, but she was fed up. Neighbors she knew were on the bus, but no one protested, stood up or offered to help her. None came to her defense!
It was said that she had tired feet, but this was not so. What she was was tired of injustice and tired of those who gave in and tired of the humiliation wreaked on Blacks. She had had her fill. She decided to take a stand through passive non-violent resistance.
Soft-spoken, respectable, demur and religiously devote, Rosa Parks was judged to be a woman whom the entire black community would stand behind, and so it was she who was promulgated and transformed into a symbol of black resistance. Nevertheless, her action was unplanned and of her own choice.
The book follows her from her youth. As a young child she learned a sense of black pride from her maternal grandparents with whom she and her mother lived. The book follows her through to her death in 2005 at the age of ninety-two. The book documents not merely the precise circumstance of the events on Dec 1, 1955, and the following 382-day bus boycott, but also her active role in the civil rights movement throughout her entire life. She and her family’s economic plight, personal sacrifices and physical and psychological suffering are all thoroughly documented. She is there at the Selma March in 1965. Having left Alabama for Detroit in 1957, she experienced first-hand racial injustice not only in the South but in the North too. Detroit was a city of segregated housing and schooling, job discrimination and police brutality. In the Detroit Riots of 1967, the barbershop where her husband Raymond was employed was vandalized.
Rosa Parks was a civil rights activist all through her life; she was active on fronts wherever injustice raised its ugly head. Her work alongside Martin Luther King. Jr., her opposition to the Vietnam War, her support of Malcolm X and the Black Power Movement, her support of Mandela and the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa are just a few examples of the political issues she involved herself in. On June 15, 1999, at the age of eighty-six, she received the Congressional Gold Medal. On receiving the medal from President Clinton, she said, “This medal is encouragement for all of us to continue until all have rights.” She may have been soft spoken, but she had courage and a will of steel.
The book is clearly well researched, but it should have been better edited. In the middle section, it is excessively repetitive. In the years following the boycott, Rosa Parks received little financial help and her notoriety made job opportunities within the white community scarce. Neither the NAACP nor the MIA (Montgomery Improvement Agency) offered her a job. Her pride and self-respect prevented her from asking for help. The difficulties she encountered are enumerated over and over again. While it is important that her travails are made known, having been obscured in the past, they need not be repeated, many times word for word, in the text here.
There are two long introductions at the beginning; they summarize the entire book. I would have preferred they had been put at the end. They are the first two chapters of the audiobook, if you perhaps wish to skip them or listen to then at the end.
The audiobook is very well narrated by Judith West. Just as Rosa was soft-spoken, so is West. In my view she does an exemplary rendition of how I imagine Rosa Sparks might have spoken. The narration is easy to follow, always clear and read at a good speed. Four stars from me for the narration.
I like this book and do recommend others to read it, despite insufficient editing and too much repetition. Rosa Parks was reticent by nature, but her actions speak volumes. I have learned not only what she did in her life but have also now a good grip on her personality.
*************************************
Related recommended books :
*Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America 4 stars
*Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age 4 stars
*Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America 4 stars
*Sterling Biographies®: Malcolm X: A Revolutionary Voice 4 stars
*While the World Watched: A Birmingham Bombing Survivor Comes of Age During the Civil Rights Movement 3 stars
June 23, 2017
Although this book was only 244 pages, short for a biography, it took me quite a while to get through it. I had wanted to read it ever since it was published and I learned much I hadn't known before, so I can only think that it was something about the writing style which made for a somewhat dry read.
The premise put forth by Jeanne Theoharis is that Mrs Parks has been relegated to being thought of as only a nice little lady who refused to give up her seat on the bus in 1955. The resulting year-long bus boycott by Negroes in Montgomery, Alabama, brought Martin Luther King to nationwide recognition and positioned him as the leader of the Civil Rights movement but left Rosa in the background. The biography recounts her earlier full decade of activism before the bus incident. Instead of suddenly deciding to stay in her seat after a long day at work, her resistance was in fact the product of long discouraging hard work as she and her husband tried in many ways to fight against Jim Crow segregation in the South.
We get the whole history of her life which went on for another 50 years after the day on the bus. Due to decisions made by predominately male civil rights leaders and due to developments in the movement, she was converted into a symbol of non-violent protest. She was a soft-spoken and somewhat shy person but actually held strong beliefs about freedom and rights for all people. She never stopped working to bring those beliefs into reality.
Though she willingly traveled the country for years to speak at rallies and events, she also spent countless hours, days, and years at a desk, managing civil rights offices, making phone calls, and writing letters. Much has been written about how the male leaders of various civil rights groups were reluctant to put power in women's hands. Rosa comes across in this biography as a women who cared deeply about others' rights to equality and freedom but had difficulty claiming her own rights.
She suffered from dire financial insecurity after the bus boycott because no white business would hire her or her husband following the arrest and trial she endured. She was fired from her job as an alterations seamstress at one of Montgomery's fine department stores. She also had health problems and no money for treatment, while daily hate calls came through her phone and bricks through her windows. In her political views she was closer to Malcolm X and the Black Panthers in the 1960s than she was to Dr King. Mainly she was tireless, determined, and not given to petty disputes.
I am so glad I read the book as it added to my understanding of those times. The author's research goes deep and felt sound. The racism encountered by Mrs Parks and her husband after they moved to Detroit in 1957, though not as outwardly virulent, was nearly as bad as it had been in Alabama. Rosa called it "the Northern promised land that wasn't."
When I read about women as strong as Rosa, as dedicated to her beliefs, as filled with hope and faith that change is possible, it becomes impossible to complain about any single thing in my life. (Of course I still do.) Change is not the result of one memorable deed. It is the result of long, hard, persistent work. I thank Jeanne Theoharis for resurrecting the real Mrs Rosa Parks from the oblivion of having been made into a political symbol and giving anyone who takes the time to read her book the full picture of an amazing female.
February 20, 2020
What I knew of Mrs Rosa Parks came from studying MLK. Meaning I knew of MLK and his biographers' understanding of Mrs Rosa Parks. Now having read Theoharis's book, I now know something of Mrs Rosa Parks and her biographer's understanding of Mrs Rosa Parks. An understanding that appreciates Rosa Parks for her own work, not work that benefitted another civil rights leader's agenda. Rosa Parks had her own agenda. Mrs. Rosa Parks was a greater civil rights and human rights worker than I knew. I now know that Mrs Rosa Parks worked for civil rights/human rights in the US American North. As a result of having read this book and developing this expanded view of Mrs Rosa Parks, later this year I will read something of this work in the American North with some of my reading buddies.
Read with GR group non Fiction Book Club
Read with GR group non Fiction Book Club
January 20, 2013
As is usual, I received this book as part of a GoodReads drawing. Despite the kind consideration of receiving a free book I give my candid assessment below.
The main topical thrust of this book is to set the story of Parks’ life in its proper light from her initial involvement in the Civil Rights movement well before the famous Bus Incident until she finally received the Medal of Honor in 1999. Mythology paints Parks as a frail matronly figure who just happens to do the right thing at the right time. The reality that Theoharis paints is much more intriguing as it finds Parks involved in the movement for years before her epic stand and as a key figure in the leadership of the movement.
The reader is also introduced to the darker side of the story including Parks’ great personal , financial and psychological sacrifices. Highlighted too is the sexism rife within the organization that led her to be a silent participant in the early years. The Parks story is no fairy tale but instead a complex and interwoven narrative of a woman and a people who had finally just had enough of the injustice that surrounded them.
Beyond the content, the book is lavishly and intricately researched. Much of the text is provided through direct quotes from the participants. This is an exceptionally scholarly work but also one that draws the reader in and builds a deep sympathetic aura. The book concludes with 57 pages of index and appendices so it is a great research resource but unlike most books of that genre it is innately readable as well.
In summary, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks is a elaborately painted picture of the battle against the injustice that sat sullenly over the Jim Crow South during the civil rights era from the viewpoint of one very courageous woman. Despite the common idea that racism has been expunged from American culture, this book is a great and timely reminder of those dark and tempestuous times that were not all that long ago and that still cast a shadow over us even today.
The main topical thrust of this book is to set the story of Parks’ life in its proper light from her initial involvement in the Civil Rights movement well before the famous Bus Incident until she finally received the Medal of Honor in 1999. Mythology paints Parks as a frail matronly figure who just happens to do the right thing at the right time. The reality that Theoharis paints is much more intriguing as it finds Parks involved in the movement for years before her epic stand and as a key figure in the leadership of the movement.
The reader is also introduced to the darker side of the story including Parks’ great personal , financial and psychological sacrifices. Highlighted too is the sexism rife within the organization that led her to be a silent participant in the early years. The Parks story is no fairy tale but instead a complex and interwoven narrative of a woman and a people who had finally just had enough of the injustice that surrounded them.
Beyond the content, the book is lavishly and intricately researched. Much of the text is provided through direct quotes from the participants. This is an exceptionally scholarly work but also one that draws the reader in and builds a deep sympathetic aura. The book concludes with 57 pages of index and appendices so it is a great research resource but unlike most books of that genre it is innately readable as well.
In summary, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks is a elaborately painted picture of the battle against the injustice that sat sullenly over the Jim Crow South during the civil rights era from the viewpoint of one very courageous woman. Despite the common idea that racism has been expunged from American culture, this book is a great and timely reminder of those dark and tempestuous times that were not all that long ago and that still cast a shadow over us even today.
June 2, 2015
I have to say that this is a great book about the life of Rosa Parks. This book has totally change my idea of who she was and all that this intelligent, persevering woman did. She was truly remarkable. She was not only a dedicated activist but also a strong woman of faith. Rosa's belief in self-defense and collective action stemmed as well as from her Christian faith. "From my upbringing and the Bible I learned people should stand up for the rights just as the children of Israel stood up to the Pharaoh." After her arrest, her family left Mongomery because it was not safe for them and they went to Chicago, living on next to nothing, having difficulties in finding employment. But she never complained. She went ahead with an operation for an ulcer and a tumor in her throat that she suffered for a long time. She found minimal work and then slowly started to pay it off, when help came. When asked how she would like to be remembered she said, "I'd like people to say I'm a person who always wanted to be free and wanted it not only for myself."
March 20, 2013
Statue of Mrs. Rosa Parks on Capitol Hill, Washington DC
Truly an inspiring figure in recent American history. Mrs. Rosa Parks had many obstacles to overcome in her life – foremost the racist and violent environment in Alabama.
The author points out a number of factors that led up to Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat on December 1st, 1955. This did not happen in isolation. Mrs. Parks had ridden innumerable times on Montgomery city buses and there had been many incidents similar to hers before. Mrs. Parks was an active member of the NAACP. She was forty-two years old in 1955 and had undergone enough of Southern hatred and bigotry. The author is also adept at presenting us these events within the moment in time. No one knew in December 1955 that the bus boycott would last over one year. No one knew that it would catapult an unknown Baptist preacher, Martin Luther King Jr., to historical fame.
In a very real sense this fame forever altered the life of Mrs. Parks – and some of it for the worse. She was forced to flee her home in Montgomery after she and her husband lost their jobs. There were unending hateful phone calls to her house, and these would continue even when she moved to Detroit. For transgressing Southern mores she paid a tremendous personal price.
The author also discusses how Mrs. Parks’ image has been contorted and manipulated over time. She points out that, whereas today we view the Montgomery bus boycott in a positive light (and the Civil Rights movement itself), but during that era most white people strongly disapproved.
In today’s vernacular Mrs. Parks would be classified as an introvert. She had a strong inner core, but was not a person who wanted to draw attention to herself. She was a person of great dignity. I did find the author was repetitive in accessing Mrs. Parks’ personality – almost every chapter discussed this. Also in the latter half of the book, my attention started to wander – but this may be just that I am not that interested in the social history of Detroit in the 1960’s and 1970’s.
Overall this is a riveting account of Mrs. Rosa Parks – it is stunning that someone at the age of forty-two summoned the courage to withstand Southern Jim Crow, thus setting historical wheels into motion. This book also personalizes the arduous life that was endured by people of colour in Montgomery, Alabama.
Page 71 (my book) Martin Luther King
“No one can understand the action of Mrs. Parks unless he realizes that eventually the cup of endurance runs over... Mrs. Park’s refusal to move back was her intrepid affirmation that she had had enough.”
Page 63 Mrs. Rosa Parks
“I felt that, if I did stand up, it meant that I approved of the way I was being treated, and I did not approve.”
February 18, 2017
This book is SO GOOD. (I know, I know--I keep saying that. But it's TRUE. I can't believe how many amazing books I'm getting to read this semester. #happygradstudent)
New life goal: Be like Mrs. Parks.
Because she totally rocks, y'all. I mean that in the best way possible.
New life goal: Be like Mrs. Parks.
Because she totally rocks, y'all. I mean that in the best way possible.
June 1, 2013
Amazing account of the life of Rosa Parks. The only pity overall is that there are a lot of papers and other written information about her that cannot be accessed as it is up for sale but for about $10 million! However, what has been left for researchers is abundant and is a wonderful read for anyone not very familiar with Rosa Parks as a person and I'm sure a very good read for those that are familiar with her story. In the book we see Rosa Parks before the great moment in 1955 and her active life afterwards. She was involved in a lot of movements and organisations from the Black Panthers to the New Afrika Movement, to the freeing of South Africa, to the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. Truly a remarkable woman and the heroine to many for so many years and will continue to be long after her death.
December 21, 2015
Excellent biography. Theoharis probes Rosa Parks' iconography (the tired, meek seamstress; a single, unplanned moment ), looking at how it was created and has been deployed both by the civil rights movement and, in more modern times, by those who want to suggest that the US is now 'post-racial.' At the same time, she shows how Parks in fact was much more than her role as a symbol would suggest, having been active in civil rights long before the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott, and having continued as an activist in the north after her move to Detroit - admiring Malcolm X, attending Black Power meetings, protesting the Vietnam War. The writing is workmanlike and a little repetitive, but the scholarship is impressive and the content is fascinating. Really glad to have read it.
February 25, 2020
This political biography should be required reading. It is an excellent lesson in the deep-seated, just anger against white oppression in this Civil Rights icon, who has been sanitized by white America, as has Dr. King.
''Held up as a national heroine but stripped of her lifelong history of activism and anger at American injustice, the Parks who emerged was a self-sacrificing mother figure for a nation who would use her death for a ritual of national redemption.'' (Jeanne Theoharis)
Rosa Parks was as much a follower of Malcolm X as she was of Martin Luther King Jr., maybe more.
''Held up as a national heroine but stripped of her lifelong history of activism and anger at American injustice, the Parks who emerged was a self-sacrificing mother figure for a nation who would use her death for a ritual of national redemption.'' (Jeanne Theoharis)
Rosa Parks was as much a follower of Malcolm X as she was of Martin Luther King Jr., maybe more.
February 16, 2013
What a wonderful tribute to a Woman who deserved to get her accolades while living. This was the first book that I have read that gave a look into the life of Mrs. Rosa Parks background in the politics of the day. Never would I have known that her Grandfather was a follower of Marcus Garvey. Never would I have known that her husband Mr. Raymond Parks was a supporter of the Scottsboro Boys. There are lots of wonderful things that I learned about her and her family from this book. To know that she greatly admired Malcolm X during the time that he was considered anti American. The way she was treated and pushed to the rear by the NAACP and otyher organizationa for the men to then step forward as though they were the ones that had the vision to do the things that she started because She was tired of being Treated as a second class citizen, because of her race.
This book was an eyeopener for me in many ways , I heard of the Highlander School in Monteagle TN but I never knew that Mrs. Parks was a student and learned many of the skills she displayed during her organizing days.
If you want to discover the Life of a Woman who was a Quiet leader and Motivator during the early Civil Rights Movements this is a excellent book.
This book was an eyeopener for me in many ways , I heard of the Highlander School in Monteagle TN but I never knew that Mrs. Parks was a student and learned many of the skills she displayed during her organizing days.
If you want to discover the Life of a Woman who was a Quiet leader and Motivator during the early Civil Rights Movements this is a excellent book.
January 8, 2016
If I were rating based on the content alone, this book would be a 5-star without doubt. The recently released archives of Mrs. Parks personal papers and letters and Ms. Theoharis' diligently researched treatment of her life is, at least to my knowledge, as yet unparalleled. You will not think of Rosa Parks (or possibly the Civil Rights Movement) in quite the same way after reading this book.
However, this book deserved a better editor. I suspect that there may have been a rush to get this book out - to be the first full length book treatment of Mrs. Rosa Parks after the release of the archives. That's the excuse that I'm allowing for releasing a book with great content and a terrible flow. It feels as though some of the chapters were written almost independently of the other chapters, with basic facts repeated multiple times throughout the book. (Repeating information in different context is often logical, but it is not presented in a way that references the earlier mention of the same.) I found myself backing up and flipping around to see if I had mistakenly put my bookmark in the wrong place on more than one occasion.
With all of that said, I can't help but want to recommend this book to others. The information in it is so fresh and new (again, to my knowledge).
However, this book deserved a better editor. I suspect that there may have been a rush to get this book out - to be the first full length book treatment of Mrs. Rosa Parks after the release of the archives. That's the excuse that I'm allowing for releasing a book with great content and a terrible flow. It feels as though some of the chapters were written almost independently of the other chapters, with basic facts repeated multiple times throughout the book. (Repeating information in different context is often logical, but it is not presented in a way that references the earlier mention of the same.) I found myself backing up and flipping around to see if I had mistakenly put my bookmark in the wrong place on more than one occasion.
With all of that said, I can't help but want to recommend this book to others. The information in it is so fresh and new (again, to my knowledge).
February 27, 2023
Jeanne Theoharis’s biography of Rosa Parks is a superb history of the Civil Rights Movement through recounting the life of Its mother, Rosa Parks. We get a full portrait of her from her beginnings as a defender of black women who were raped and men who were lynched to her support of the Black Power Movement and love of Malcolm X.
Known for not giving up her seat on the bus for a white man, there were many before her. But people were ready to begin the great Montgomery Bus Boycott which lasted over a year. When Rosa Parks could not stay in Montgomery anymore she moved to Detroit where she campaigned for civil rights because the racism up north was just as bad. She was constantly red-baited and called a communist but she never stopped and never denied her politics either. In Detroit she played a key role in the 1967 rebellion. She supported various electoral initiatives like the Freedom Now Party and the Lowndes County Freedom Organization and elected officials. She was slighted as a woman leader especially in the early part of the movement and was in the shadow of Martin Luther King. She never got discouraged and always fought for a United front. She supported both non-violence and black militancy. She believed “black militancy derived from white obstructionism.”
There is so much to learn about the struggle for civil and human rights in this book. It is a wonderful read.
Known for not giving up her seat on the bus for a white man, there were many before her. But people were ready to begin the great Montgomery Bus Boycott which lasted over a year. When Rosa Parks could not stay in Montgomery anymore she moved to Detroit where she campaigned for civil rights because the racism up north was just as bad. She was constantly red-baited and called a communist but she never stopped and never denied her politics either. In Detroit she played a key role in the 1967 rebellion. She supported various electoral initiatives like the Freedom Now Party and the Lowndes County Freedom Organization and elected officials. She was slighted as a woman leader especially in the early part of the movement and was in the shadow of Martin Luther King. She never got discouraged and always fought for a United front. She supported both non-violence and black militancy. She believed “black militancy derived from white obstructionism.”
There is so much to learn about the struggle for civil and human rights in this book. It is a wonderful read.
November 8, 2022
Theoharis engages in important myth debunking even while she traces the growth of the dangerous myth. The danger is that in losing site of the real person's ongoing actions against systemic racism, the symbol portrays a safe past action and a finished project and opens the door to blaming individual responsibility. This is a very readable biography, mostly chronological, but also thematic.
After presenting Parks's family and childhood, the myth of the tired seamstress is questioned and Parks's strength, determination, and anger are explored. But the beginning of the myth in its strategic use at the time is also explored. And with the bus boycott's ending, the book is only midway. She did more, who knew? Her life in Detroit allows for exploration of the form racism has in the north. Especially interesting is the chapter on Parks's relationship to the Black Power movement: "Mrs. Parks's political activities and associations in 1960s and 1970s Detroit illustrate the continuities and connections between the civil rights and Black power movements" (203).
A very important book.
After presenting Parks's family and childhood, the myth of the tired seamstress is questioned and Parks's strength, determination, and anger are explored. But the beginning of the myth in its strategic use at the time is also explored. And with the bus boycott's ending, the book is only midway. She did more, who knew? Her life in Detroit allows for exploration of the form racism has in the north. Especially interesting is the chapter on Parks's relationship to the Black Power movement: "Mrs. Parks's political activities and associations in 1960s and 1970s Detroit illustrate the continuities and connections between the civil rights and Black power movements" (203).
A very important book.
July 24, 2020
El libro no está mal, el problema es que pierde muchísima fuerza porque es todo contado desde fuera y además añade muchos pequeños detalles, a veces de más, y otras en cambio no explica según que cosas. No llevaba ni la mitad de la lectura cuando me dije... ¿Rosa Parks no tiene una biografía decente? Y justo me encontré en ebiblio su autobiografía, por lo que éste libro dejó de importar. Lo acabé porque lo tenía en físico y porque no está mal, pero lo veo absolutamente innecesario si podéis acceder a leer la autobiografía de la propia Rosa Parks.
Además, si lo cogéis alguna vez... no os dejéis llevar por la portada. Yo en un primer momento lo elegí pensando que sería su autobiografía llevada a novela gráfica, cosa que me interesaba muchísimo, y nada. Es un libro común y corriente, cercano al ensayo pero sin la profundidad necesaria, que intenta hacer como de 2ª biografía de la autora... y que pierde absolutamente el sentido cuando lees sobre ella en sus propias palabras. No está mal, pero no puedo olvidar que para mí ha sido una decepción en muchos aspectos.
Además, si lo cogéis alguna vez... no os dejéis llevar por la portada. Yo en un primer momento lo elegí pensando que sería su autobiografía llevada a novela gráfica, cosa que me interesaba muchísimo, y nada. Es un libro común y corriente, cercano al ensayo pero sin la profundidad necesaria, que intenta hacer como de 2ª biografía de la autora... y que pierde absolutamente el sentido cuando lees sobre ella en sus propias palabras. No está mal, pero no puedo olvidar que para mí ha sido una decepción en muchos aspectos.
July 18, 2019
While at the Rosa Parks museum in Montgomery last month, I got the first inkling that her legacy as I'd learned it in school was partially mythologized. This book confirms it. She's quite different from what I'd always assumed. Complex, interesting, and largely misunderstood.
August 16, 2022
Summary: A nuanced and detailed biography of a woman that has primarily been reduced to a single act.
I have read Jeanne Theoharis' books out of order. Her more recent book, A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History, has many themes hinted at in The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks but more fully fleshed out in the second book. Both books are well worth reading, although there is some overlap. There is a running joke among Civil Rights historians that quite often, the history of the civil rights moment is presented as that one day the Supreme Court announced the end of school segregation, and then the next day Rosa Parks sat down. A day later, MLK stood up to give his I Have a Dream Speech. Then the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 were passed, and MLK was assassinated. The real history of the Civil Rights Movement is much more complicated and much longer.
In some ways, it is hard to categorize the boundaries of the movement because, as with all history, events influence other events. Both The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks and At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape and Resistance-a New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power emphasize that by 1955, Rosa Parks had been participating or leading on civil rights issues for nearly 20 years. The December 1, 1955 events may not have been explicitly planned as an NAACP action, but it was not a random event that did not have a larger context. Several events had to work together. Rosa Parks tended to avoid James Blake's bus because she had had run-ins with the bus driver before. Other events around the country like the lynching of Emmett Till, the Interstate Commerce Commission's ruling banning "separate but equal" regarding interstate bus travel, and Rosa Parks' recent participation in the Highlander Folk School training all likely had some effect. In the end, Rosa Parks refused to get up from her seat. City policy should have meant that she did not have to move because no other seats were available. Instead, the bus driver called the police, and she was arrested. Because this is such an essential part of Rosa Parks' legacy, the event and the bus boycott are significant parts of the biography. But the biography also clarifies that Rosa Parks was far more important than just her single act, even if that act is what she is known for.
The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks and many other books about less well-known figures of the Civil Rights movement show the considerable cost that everyday people suffered. Money is not everything, but it is one illustration. According to tax records, it took ten years for the couple to recover their income from before the bus boycott, and they were not a wealthy family. At the low point, their income was cut by 80%. Even so, during this time, they were forced to move to Detroit to escape the harassment and job discrimination once the boycott was completed. Rosa Parks spent nearly two years working as a receptionist at the Hampton Institute in Virginia (a historically black college) away from her husband and mother because it was the only job she could find (and the Hampton Institute did not provide housing for the whole family). It was not until a year after the newly elected congressman John Conyers hired her as a congressional staffer in 1965 that their income reached above the pre-1956 income.
As always, there are details that I learn from every book. One of the things that was made evident in The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, in the context of voting rights, is that not only were potential Black voters given personalized "literacy tests" that were not given to potential White voters (because of grandfather clauses), but when a Black person was attempting to register, they had to pay not just a poll tax for the year that they were registering, but back taxes for every year that they had been theoretically eligible to vote. And again, in many cases, White voters were exempted from the poll taxes in the authorizing legislation. Rosa Parks attempted to register to vote three times. The first time she failed the literacy test. The second time she passed the literacy test but was never mailed a voting card (white voters were given the card at the time of registration, but black voters were mailed their cards.) The third time she again passed the literacy test but had to pay the annual poll tax of $1.50, but for all eleven years that she was technically old enough to vote. This would be the equivalent of nearly $300 in 2022 dollars, not an insurmountable amount, but when she and her husband's combined income would have been about $60-75 a week, it was still a significant sum. Rosa Parks' husband could never register to vote until they moved to Detroit in 1956.
One of the book's themes is the tension between respectability politics and the very real backlash against civil rights organizing. Rosa Parks was known for her conservative dress and proper manners. She was also a woman of deep faith and humility who did not like to promote herself or her needs. That conservative dress did not mean that she was politically conservative. In her later years, she spoke at the Million Men March organized by Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. She regularly attended meetings for the local chapter of the Black Panthers in Detroit. But Parks was aware of respectability's role in the civil rights movement.
Rosa Parks immediately resigned her membership in the NAACP after the arrest. And that part of the process was not incidental to the larger boycott. The Alabama Attorney General got a court order banning the NAACP in June 1956 after attempting to prosecute the leaders of the boycott for conspiracy in March 1956. Within weeks of the start of the boycott, Rosa Parks was fired from her job (the whole department was closed within the department store she worked at), and her husband was pushed out of a job as a barber on a local Air Force base, which was technically desegregated already. Part of Parks' reluctance to assert herself is that she worked to care for others but did not like expressing needs. That, combined with the sexism of the early civil rights movement, meant that others were supported, but she was not. The Women's Political Council organized the initial boycott under the leadership of Jo Ann Robinson. Still, the initial meetings of what became the MIA (Montgomery Improvement Association) excluded both Jo Ann Robinson and Rosa Parks. Rosa Parks was not allowed to speak at the first mass meeting even though he had a history of speaking at civil rights events organized by the NAACP and had led youth organizing for years. Women primarily staffed the boycott as drivers and operators, and it was primarily women who were the riders doing the boycott. But it was a male leadership that claimed authority. Rosa Parks was not even invited to a number of the initial commemorations of the Montgomery Boycott or the Southern Christian Leadership Council. Although she was regularly asked to speak at fundraisers, she spent much of the year during the boycott traveling to speak at fundraising events, mostly without being paid for her time.
As was highlighted more with Beautiful and Terrible History, the sexism of the civil rights movement increasingly mattered over time. The 1963 March, which very clearly marginalized women and in which Rosa Parks spoke eight words, was the start of women refusing to allow their role to be marginalized when they were the ones that were so often responsible for so much of the mundane work.
The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks plays a similar role to The Radical King. Both King and Parks and many others have been remaindered for a small part of what they did. Their work and thought were flattened. King's change happened after his death. But Parks' misremembered history and her reduced role were both a necessary feature of the Montgomery boycott because of the reality of the racism at the time, and a feature of sexism of the movement. Rosa Parks' may bear some responsibility because of her humility and reluctance to assert a public role. But her history as an organizer and her willingness to speak and act throughout the rest of her life in public and often dangerous ways shows that the resultant to assert a public role did not mean that she was trying to hide. She was not trying to assert leadership competitively. And she was not trying to make her (very real financial and other) needs more important than the genuine financial and other needs of other people around her.
The more I read, the more I think the stories of lesser-known figures, especially women leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, need to be told. I do not know if I would recommend The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks or A Beautiful and Terrible History to be read first. A Beautiful and Terrible History is a bit shorter and covers more topics. But many of the topics, the marginalization of women, the under-appreciated reality of northern racism during the Civil Rights Era, the longer history of the movement than what is often appreciated, the problems of the white moderate and of media, the role of young people and of broader social issues in the US and globally, and the role of historical memory are all topics that both books cover even if they cover them in slightly different ways. Rosa Parks plays a significant role in both books, and both are books that should be more widely read. You cannot go wrong with whichever one you start with.
I have read Jeanne Theoharis' books out of order. Her more recent book, A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History, has many themes hinted at in The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks but more fully fleshed out in the second book. Both books are well worth reading, although there is some overlap. There is a running joke among Civil Rights historians that quite often, the history of the civil rights moment is presented as that one day the Supreme Court announced the end of school segregation, and then the next day Rosa Parks sat down. A day later, MLK stood up to give his I Have a Dream Speech. Then the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 were passed, and MLK was assassinated. The real history of the Civil Rights Movement is much more complicated and much longer.
In some ways, it is hard to categorize the boundaries of the movement because, as with all history, events influence other events. Both The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks and At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape and Resistance-a New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power emphasize that by 1955, Rosa Parks had been participating or leading on civil rights issues for nearly 20 years. The December 1, 1955 events may not have been explicitly planned as an NAACP action, but it was not a random event that did not have a larger context. Several events had to work together. Rosa Parks tended to avoid James Blake's bus because she had had run-ins with the bus driver before. Other events around the country like the lynching of Emmett Till, the Interstate Commerce Commission's ruling banning "separate but equal" regarding interstate bus travel, and Rosa Parks' recent participation in the Highlander Folk School training all likely had some effect. In the end, Rosa Parks refused to get up from her seat. City policy should have meant that she did not have to move because no other seats were available. Instead, the bus driver called the police, and she was arrested. Because this is such an essential part of Rosa Parks' legacy, the event and the bus boycott are significant parts of the biography. But the biography also clarifies that Rosa Parks was far more important than just her single act, even if that act is what she is known for.
The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks and many other books about less well-known figures of the Civil Rights movement show the considerable cost that everyday people suffered. Money is not everything, but it is one illustration. According to tax records, it took ten years for the couple to recover their income from before the bus boycott, and they were not a wealthy family. At the low point, their income was cut by 80%. Even so, during this time, they were forced to move to Detroit to escape the harassment and job discrimination once the boycott was completed. Rosa Parks spent nearly two years working as a receptionist at the Hampton Institute in Virginia (a historically black college) away from her husband and mother because it was the only job she could find (and the Hampton Institute did not provide housing for the whole family). It was not until a year after the newly elected congressman John Conyers hired her as a congressional staffer in 1965 that their income reached above the pre-1956 income.
As always, there are details that I learn from every book. One of the things that was made evident in The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, in the context of voting rights, is that not only were potential Black voters given personalized "literacy tests" that were not given to potential White voters (because of grandfather clauses), but when a Black person was attempting to register, they had to pay not just a poll tax for the year that they were registering, but back taxes for every year that they had been theoretically eligible to vote. And again, in many cases, White voters were exempted from the poll taxes in the authorizing legislation. Rosa Parks attempted to register to vote three times. The first time she failed the literacy test. The second time she passed the literacy test but was never mailed a voting card (white voters were given the card at the time of registration, but black voters were mailed their cards.) The third time she again passed the literacy test but had to pay the annual poll tax of $1.50, but for all eleven years that she was technically old enough to vote. This would be the equivalent of nearly $300 in 2022 dollars, not an insurmountable amount, but when she and her husband's combined income would have been about $60-75 a week, it was still a significant sum. Rosa Parks' husband could never register to vote until they moved to Detroit in 1956.
One of the book's themes is the tension between respectability politics and the very real backlash against civil rights organizing. Rosa Parks was known for her conservative dress and proper manners. She was also a woman of deep faith and humility who did not like to promote herself or her needs. That conservative dress did not mean that she was politically conservative. In her later years, she spoke at the Million Men March organized by Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. She regularly attended meetings for the local chapter of the Black Panthers in Detroit. But Parks was aware of respectability's role in the civil rights movement.
The paradox was this: Parks's refusal to get up from her seat and the community outrage around her arrest were rooted in her long history of political involvement and their trust in her. However, this same political history got pushed to the background to further the public image of the boycott. Parks had a more extensive and progressive political background than many of the boycott leaders; many people probably didn't know she had been to Highlander, and some would have been uncomfortable with her ties to leftist organizers. Rosa Parks proved an ideal person around which a boycott could coalesce, but it demanded publicizing a strategic image of her. Describing Parks as "not a disturbing factor," Dr. King would note her stellar character at the first mass meeting in Montgomery, referring to the "boundless outreach of her integrity, the height of her character."
The foregrounding of Parks's respectability--of her being a good Christian woman and tired seamstress--proved pivotal to the success of the boycott because it helped to deflect Cold War suspicions about grassroots militancy. Rumors immediately arose within white Montgomery circles that Parks was an NCAAP plant. Indeed, if the myth of Parks put forth by many in the black community was that she was a simple Christian seamstress, the myth most commonly put forth by Montgomery's white community was that the NAACP (in league with the Communist Party) had orchestrated the whole thing." (p83)
Rosa Parks immediately resigned her membership in the NAACP after the arrest. And that part of the process was not incidental to the larger boycott. The Alabama Attorney General got a court order banning the NAACP in June 1956 after attempting to prosecute the leaders of the boycott for conspiracy in March 1956. Within weeks of the start of the boycott, Rosa Parks was fired from her job (the whole department was closed within the department store she worked at), and her husband was pushed out of a job as a barber on a local Air Force base, which was technically desegregated already. Part of Parks' reluctance to assert herself is that she worked to care for others but did not like expressing needs. That, combined with the sexism of the early civil rights movement, meant that others were supported, but she was not. The Women's Political Council organized the initial boycott under the leadership of Jo Ann Robinson. Still, the initial meetings of what became the MIA (Montgomery Improvement Association) excluded both Jo Ann Robinson and Rosa Parks. Rosa Parks was not allowed to speak at the first mass meeting even though he had a history of speaking at civil rights events organized by the NAACP and had led youth organizing for years. Women primarily staffed the boycott as drivers and operators, and it was primarily women who were the riders doing the boycott. But it was a male leadership that claimed authority. Rosa Parks was not even invited to a number of the initial commemorations of the Montgomery Boycott or the Southern Christian Leadership Council. Although she was regularly asked to speak at fundraisers, she spent much of the year during the boycott traveling to speak at fundraising events, mostly without being paid for her time.
As was highlighted more with Beautiful and Terrible History, the sexism of the civil rights movement increasingly mattered over time. The 1963 March, which very clearly marginalized women and in which Rosa Parks spoke eight words, was the start of women refusing to allow their role to be marginalized when they were the ones that were so often responsible for so much of the mundane work.
The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks plays a similar role to The Radical King. Both King and Parks and many others have been remaindered for a small part of what they did. Their work and thought were flattened. King's change happened after his death. But Parks' misremembered history and her reduced role were both a necessary feature of the Montgomery boycott because of the reality of the racism at the time, and a feature of sexism of the movement. Rosa Parks' may bear some responsibility because of her humility and reluctance to assert a public role. But her history as an organizer and her willingness to speak and act throughout the rest of her life in public and often dangerous ways shows that the resultant to assert a public role did not mean that she was trying to hide. She was not trying to assert leadership competitively. And she was not trying to make her (very real financial and other) needs more important than the genuine financial and other needs of other people around her.
The more I read, the more I think the stories of lesser-known figures, especially women leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, need to be told. I do not know if I would recommend The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks or A Beautiful and Terrible History to be read first. A Beautiful and Terrible History is a bit shorter and covers more topics. But many of the topics, the marginalization of women, the under-appreciated reality of northern racism during the Civil Rights Era, the longer history of the movement than what is often appreciated, the problems of the white moderate and of media, the role of young people and of broader social issues in the US and globally, and the role of historical memory are all topics that both books cover even if they cover them in slightly different ways. Rosa Parks plays a significant role in both books, and both are books that should be more widely read. You cannot go wrong with whichever one you start with.
May 8, 2020
The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks by Jeanne Theoharis
As with the last book I reviewed, Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom by Catherine Clinton, this book tells a story of the rich details about Rosa Parks’s life that most people don’t know.
The book covers her life’s story from childhood well beyond her refusing to get up from her seat on the public bus in Montgomery, AL on December 1, 1955. The reader learns of her early life, her education, family and her up bring by her grandparents, former slaves, along with the lifelong activism against segregation and the difficult economic conditions she suffered under in part to her activism and segregation both in the South and the North.
The author, a Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College, provides a detailed look into the Civil Rights Movement, the part Rosa Parks played, her interactions with Rev. Martin Luther King, Rev. Ralph Abernathy, John Lewis, the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC), Students Nonviolence Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and her lifelong membership in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and others.
I very much enjoyed this book; it provides details of the 1950’s – 1970’s and beyond that ties the Civil Rights Movement together in a very understandable way. I highly recommend this book.
As with the last book I reviewed, Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom by Catherine Clinton, this book tells a story of the rich details about Rosa Parks’s life that most people don’t know.
The book covers her life’s story from childhood well beyond her refusing to get up from her seat on the public bus in Montgomery, AL on December 1, 1955. The reader learns of her early life, her education, family and her up bring by her grandparents, former slaves, along with the lifelong activism against segregation and the difficult economic conditions she suffered under in part to her activism and segregation both in the South and the North.
The author, a Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College, provides a detailed look into the Civil Rights Movement, the part Rosa Parks played, her interactions with Rev. Martin Luther King, Rev. Ralph Abernathy, John Lewis, the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC), Students Nonviolence Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and her lifelong membership in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and others.
I very much enjoyed this book; it provides details of the 1950’s – 1970’s and beyond that ties the Civil Rights Movement together in a very understandable way. I highly recommend this book.
July 29, 2013
I am always disappointed when I see a History Day project that buys into the image of Rosa Parks as a quiet and unassuming every person. Theoharis, like the previous revisionist work, At the Dark End of the Street, takes on the far more uncomfortable truth--that the quiet image was created at the time for very specific reasons, but that Parks had a long history taking on some of the thorniest problems of the Civil Rights movement--researching sexual assaults against women of color (which, against lynchings, were not the highest priority), advocated for blue-collar goals against the wishes of middle and upper class leaders, demanded a place for women and their voices, and was a savvy political operator (and had a long career after the moment on the bus). To her credit, in documenting all of this, Theoharis grapples with why it is so much easier to see her as a simple heroine rather than a real human being who didn't conform to expectations at the time and whose family paid a high price for activism long after the bus boycott.
September 9, 2013
I saw the author on Book TV and decided I had to read this book. Mrs. Parks has been minimized to a bus ride - surely that ride made a huge impact but she was SO much more.
This book showed me who Mrs. Rosa Parks really was - a lifelong activist. Her mother was a teacher and instilled in her a value for education. Mrs. Parks was an educated woman who was always working to better the cause of the Black person in the South. Her involvement started with the infamous Scottsboro boys case, and went forward with the NAACP, voter registrations - so many things.
mrs. Rosa Parks is a role model - not just for her bus ride but for her lifelong dedication to righting the wrongs of the world.
This is a must read for the history lovers among us. And if you have a student doing a report on Rosa Parks, please be sure to share this resource for amazing information and insight on the subject.
This book showed me who Mrs. Rosa Parks really was - a lifelong activist. Her mother was a teacher and instilled in her a value for education. Mrs. Parks was an educated woman who was always working to better the cause of the Black person in the South. Her involvement started with the infamous Scottsboro boys case, and went forward with the NAACP, voter registrations - so many things.
mrs. Rosa Parks is a role model - not just for her bus ride but for her lifelong dedication to righting the wrongs of the world.
This is a must read for the history lovers among us. And if you have a student doing a report on Rosa Parks, please be sure to share this resource for amazing information and insight on the subject.
August 16, 2013
I finished this the other day and am still forming a response to this book. I will post a view at a later day, but for now, there is one point that niggled me throughout the entire book.
Rosa Parks was truly an amazing woman, strong and prideful and was passionate about equal rights for blacks. I was and am still astounded by the classcism that existed in 1950s Montgomery, Alabamba. To think, less than 100 years out of slavery, and in the Jim Crow south class lines were drawn. Class played a large role in the story of Montgomery's Bus Boycott. I always knew there was class divisions but the extent to how this monumental occurence was mired in it, is something that has me feeling judgemental about some of our most esteemed leaders. That's all I'll have for now.
Rosa Parks was truly an amazing woman, strong and prideful and was passionate about equal rights for blacks. I was and am still astounded by the classcism that existed in 1950s Montgomery, Alabamba. To think, less than 100 years out of slavery, and in the Jim Crow south class lines were drawn. Class played a large role in the story of Montgomery's Bus Boycott. I always knew there was class divisions but the extent to how this monumental occurence was mired in it, is something that has me feeling judgemental about some of our most esteemed leaders. That's all I'll have for now.
December 28, 2015
A very good look at the totality of Rosa Parks' life. I learned a lot about Rosa Parks and her continued involvement in the push to achieve civil rights and justice for black people in the US. Parks' story is so much more than the day she remained sitting on the bus in Montgomery AL.
Criticisms of the book: I found Theoharis to be a repetitive writer. Also she relied on/heavily quoted from the papers of the white activists that Parks' interacted with. This is likely due to better preservation of their papers.
Criticisms of the book: I found Theoharis to be a repetitive writer. Also she relied on/heavily quoted from the papers of the white activists that Parks' interacted with. This is likely due to better preservation of their papers.
March 19, 2013
I knew very little about Rosa Parks beyond her historic refusal to move to the back of the bus in December 1955 in Montgomery, AL. The author succeeded in showing me that Rosa Parks was much more than just that one defiant act. She was a civil rights activist all along, even before MLK. The book is a bit dry and academic. I would like to see a biography of Parks that examines more of her life on a personal level.
July 9, 2022
A lot of research went into this book in order to do a lot of debunking about the life of Mrs. Rosa Parks. She was not simply a tired seamstress who wanted to rest her feet. Instead, she was fed up with being treated like a second class citizen while paying the same as white people for the bus. The bus drivers already saw her as a "problem" because she refused to enter and exit the bus from the back.
She was a very progressive person, far more than the legend says. After MLK gets accused of being a communist for giving a speech at Highlander Folk School on her invitation, Parks shot back at critics, saying that if anything SHE'S the communist because he was just giving a speech while she was attending classes! A truly extraordinary woman and a great book that highlights her story.
She was a very progressive person, far more than the legend says. After MLK gets accused of being a communist for giving a speech at Highlander Folk School on her invitation, Parks shot back at critics, saying that if anything SHE'S the communist because he was just giving a speech while she was attending classes! A truly extraordinary woman and a great book that highlights her story.
February 13, 2023
Mrs. Rosa Park's was an extremely active worker in the civil rights movement and did far more than refuse to give up a seat on a bus.
The sad part is how little recognition her other work received and even though she raised huge sums of money for many organizations, she had serious money problems. Part of the problem is that she is a woman and not a college graduate, a problem shared by many groups.
As for education, she read ferociously, took classes and attended conferences. Her practical political knowledge was finally put to good use by Congressman John Conyers. Also most organizations didn't let women into leadership positions in that era, still an issue in an age where ERA still hadn't passed.
One ironic note, lynching became a federal crime in 2022 after more than 100 years.
The sad part is how little recognition her other work received and even though she raised huge sums of money for many organizations, she had serious money problems. Part of the problem is that she is a woman and not a college graduate, a problem shared by many groups.
As for education, she read ferociously, took classes and attended conferences. Her practical political knowledge was finally put to good use by Congressman John Conyers. Also most organizations didn't let women into leadership positions in that era, still an issue in an age where ERA still hadn't passed.
One ironic note, lynching became a federal crime in 2022 after more than 100 years.
January 14, 2021
Loved the beginning of the book. The end got redundant and it was like the author was trying to paint Rosa being meek was a negative trait. Rosa was both meek and bold and that is okay. It gave me new insights and I learned a ton from it.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 207 reviews