Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks. By. Douglas Brinkley. 2000. P.246
Author, Douglas Brinkley, is a distinguished professor of history and director of the Eisenhower Center at the University of New Orleans. He is the author of multiple award-winning books on FDR, Jimmy Carter, and The American Heritage History of the United States. These accomplishments were acknowledged in his biography in the back of this book. Since 2000, Brinkley is now a professor of History at Rice University in Houston, Texas where he is happily living with his wife and three children. Brinkley is also the CNN presidential historian and is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and Audubon. He recently won the Sperber Prize for Best Book in Journalism and was a Washington Post Notable
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Book of the Year, for his book Cronkite, a novel about a late American broadcast journalist. Brinkley has been referred to by mentors as the best of the new generation of American historians. Douglas Brinkley first got the idea to write about Rosa Parks in APril of 1977 when he took ten Louisiana high school teachers and twenty of their students on a two-and-a-half week Majic Bus civil rights tour of the south.
This tour, sponsored by the University of New Orleans, is designed to spark interest in the history of the struggle for racial equality (Brinkley 233). While on the bus, the tour group discusses information about important events that occurred in the south during the struggle. They talk about the assassination of MLK and meet with members of the SCLC and SNCC in Birmingham. Though there are so many people to learn about the one story who captivated them all was Rosa Parks. It wasn’t until one afternoon when Brinkley was preparing a lecture that he realized that there had not yet been a biography written about Rosa Parks. Sure there are children's books and other books written about small parts of her life but not one that could really discuss the impact and background of Rosa Parks. That is when Brinkley decided to write the first non-fiction book about Rosa …show more content…
Parks. Rosa Parks is an iconic individual in black history because of her refusal to give up her seat to a white person on a Montgomery bus. This is the one thing most everyone knows about Rosa Parks. In Brinkley’s book, Rosa Parks, he gives the full story of her from information he obtained from Parks herself. This book can be considered new because the information is direct from Rosa Parks explaining more about her life that is not known by many. This book was written five years prior to her death in 2005 and might be one of the last full recordings of her history that she would ever tell. Rosa Parks, the biography, is a book about an activist in the Civil Rights Movement, whom the United States Congress called "the first lady of civil rights" and "the mother of the freedom movement".
She is most remembered for her refusal to give up her seat on a packed separated bus. Those who would be attracted to this book are those who wish to know more about history, especially during the civil rights movement, or even to simply know more about Rosa Parks and her life than just that one detail. Brinkley wanted to make sure that the reader is aware of the events and life of Rosa Parks before the moment that would change history and herself for a long time. Those seeking an informing and significant non-fiction book, would also be apart of those who would be interested in this
book. Rosa Louise McCauley was born on February 4, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama. Growing up, she was one of many families living in poverty. As a child, Parks enjoyed going to church. She attended an African Methodist Episcopal church where she expressed herself and religion through rhythms and echoes of Africa (Brinkley 12). Throughout her the rest of her life she remained devoted to that church and explained that “God is everything to me” (13). Her church hated the idea of slavery. There, Parks learned to despise the law but not to break it. She knew of the struggle of being a black woman during this time from a young age through her involvement in her church. Parks attended school where there she met her husband, Raymond Parks. He, much like herself, was a strong believer in his faith and in battle for civil rights. They were both apart of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP. Parks had been fighting for equal rights for a long time but never spoke out against the law. That was until December 1, 1955 when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus. After a long day of work as a seamstress for a Montgomery department store, Parks boarded a city bus to go home. She went past the first seats marked “whites only” and took a seat in the middle of the bus where she was allowed to sit if there were no white people standing. The bus began to get crowded and there were no more white only seats open. A white passenger ordered Parks to get up and give him her seat. She refused. She was arrested and put on trial. This sparked a thirteen-month long boycott and started the modern civil rights movement. She was found guilty for breaking the segregation laws (Brinkley 125). This movement gained support from people throughout and got the attention of individuals like Edgar Nixon and the equal activist of them all, Martin Luther King Jr. The Supreme Court ruled that the bus segregation laws were unconstitutional and thus ended the Montgomery bus boycott in 1956. Rosa Parks, with her hard work and commitment to what she believed in, changed history with a single word, “No”. Douglas Brinkley, the author of Rosa Parks, wrote the book with the bias to Parks. He wanted to show the readers that throughout Parks whole life, she was fighting for equality, and that she wasn’t involved in one single movement. Brinkley described Parks as “a symbol of the triumph of steadfastness in the name of justice” (Brinkley 246). He admired her and wanted his book to be told exactly how she wanted it to be. Readers can say that his writing is aimed at praising her actions in a positive way. Brinkley described things the way they were and even though as a white author of this book, he was discriminating against whites. Brinkley used one main source throughout this whole book and it was who the book was about, Rosa Parks. He wanted to make the first non-fiction book about Rosa Parks truly present her as one of the most influential woman in American History. The readers of this book will learn about Rosa Parks achievements, struggles, and life behind the stereotype of the woman on the bus. This book did not include any pictures besides the photograph of Rosa Parks on the cover. It would have been beneficial to this book to insert some photographs of popular moments from this time. Pictures would have gained another look into Rosa Parks’ life and the things she did to change American History all together.
hirley kept active in politics following her retirement by co-founding the National Political Congress of Black Women and serving as its founding in 1984 until1992.
Rosa Parks’s story is very similar to Viola’s in the fact that both of them had taken a stand to racial segregation by taking a seat. For Rosa it all too similar to what happened to Viola as she had set in a seat which black people were not allowed to sit in, when she did this they asked her to move to where she was supposed to sit(at the back of the bus) but she refused and was arrested. Rosa Parks & Viola Desmond both did similar actions, however, what they received for doing this was very different once racial segregation was no longer socially acceptable was much
Brinkley, Alan. The Unfinished Nation: A Concise History of the American People. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010. Print.
In conclusion, Rosa Parks was an outstanding hero that helped desegregate the city buses of Montgomery, Alabama. She gained a lot of fellow friendships and also became a civil right Activists. She earned a lot of respect and rewards for her actions of not giving her seat up. As you can see her life her hero story fits very well with Joseph Campbell’s stages of the hero’s
1) The major theme of the book is respectability. In the 1950 's Rosa Parks became the symbol for black female resistance in the
Coretta Scott King was born on April 27, 1927 in Heiberger, Alabama. Heiberger was a small segregated town. Coretta’s parents were Obadiah and Bernice Scott. She has an older sister named Edythe and a younger brother, Obie. Coretta was named after her grandmother Cora Scott. Her family was hard working and devoted Christians. Coretta had a strong temper, feared no one and stood up for herself.
Life - Rosa Parks was born only a month before world war one started in Europe on February 4, 1913. Parks mother worked as a school teacher in Tuskegee, Alabama. James McCauley, Rosa's dad was a carpenter. They lived in Tuskegee and owned farmland of their own. After Sylvester was born, Rosa's little brother, her father left them and went off to live in another town. He had been cheated out of his farmland by a white man and couldn't support the family any longer. Rosa her mother and her brother then moved to live with her grandparents on a farm in Pinelevel, which lay between Tuskegee and Montgomery, Alabama. It was a small plot of land, but it kept them all fed. From this point on Rosa was mainly brought up by her Grandparents with the assistance of her mother. Rosa gave up school when she came close to graduating, around the same time Rosa got married. Raymond Parks married Rosa McCauley December 18, 1932. He was a barber from Wedowee County, Alabama. He had little formal education but a thirst for knowledge. Her husband, Raymond Parks, encouraged her to finish her courses. In 1934 she received her diploma from Alabama State College. She was happy that she completed her education but had little hope of getting a better job. When Rosa had finished school she was lucky enough to get a job as a seamstress in a local sewing factory. Prior to the bus incident Rosa was still fighting. She had run-ins with bus drivers and was evicted from buses. Parks recalls the humiliation: "I didn't want to pay my fare and then go around the back door, because many times, even if you did that, you might not get on the bus at all. They'd probably shut the door, drive off, and leave you standing there."
Rosa Parks risked her life everyday by being a leader and role model in her community. Rosa and her husband were both fired from their jobs and they had no income, which meant they had no money for their family. To make things worse Parks was getting threatening calls and it got to the point of
Waldo E. Martin, Jr. and Patricia Sullivan. New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2000. U.S. History in Context. Web. The Web.
Brinkley, Alan. The Unfinished Nation: A Concise History of the American People. 5th Ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2008).
Throughout history many movements have tended to have a founding father and mother. Coretta Scott King portrayed this mother in the American Civil Rights Movement. She embodied all that a woman could want to be as she stood up for her rights and the rights of others. This is what has made her a household name throughout the world and an iconic figure for change. Along with her husband, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Coretta spent a majority of her life fighting for the equal treatment of her people in America. Over time this spread to the many different realms of society, touching on racial and economic equality, religious freedom, the necessities of the poor and homeless, employment and healthcare, equal educational opportunities, women’s and children’s rights, as well as gay and lesbian rights, nuclear disarmament, and ecological sanity.
Racism and prejudice have been dominant issues in the United States for many years. Being such a major issue is society, racism is also a major theme in one of the best pieces of American Literature, To Kill A Mockingbird. People, particularly African Americans, have been denied basic human rights such as getting a fair trial, eating in a certain restaurant, or sitting in certain seats of public buses. However, in 1955 a woman named Rosa Parks took a stand, or more correctly took a seat, on a public bus in Montgomery, Alabama. She refused to give her seat to a white man and was arrested for not doing so. The reasons and consequences and the significance of her stand are comparable in many ways to Atticus Finch's stand in To Kill A Mockingbird. Rosa Parks worked for the equality of all people. She was elected secretary of the Montgomery branch of the National Advancement of Colored People, unsuccessfully attempted to vote many times to prove her point of discrimination, and had numerous encounters with bus drivers who discriminated against blacks. She was weary of the discrimination she faced due to the Jim Crow laws, which were laws were intended to prohibit "black[Americans] from mixing with white [Americans]" ("Jim Crow Laws"1). Also, due to the Jim Crow laws, blacks were required to give their seats to white passengers if there were no more empty seats. This is exactly what happened on December 1, 1955. On her way home from work, Rosa Parks refused to give her seat to a white man and was shortly arrested (National Women's Hall of Fame1). Even though she knew what the consequences were for refusing to leave her seat, she decided to take a stand against a wrong that was the norm in society. She knew that she would be arrested, yet she decided that she would try to make a change. Although her arrest would seem like she lost her battle, what followed would be her victory. Rosa Parks's stand was so significant that she is called the mother of the civil rights movement (National Women's Hall of Fame1). Her arrest served as a catalyst for a massive boycott for public busses. Led by Martin Luther King, for 381 days, African Americans carpooled, walked, or found other ways of transportation. Despite the harassment everyone involved in the movement faced, the boycott continued and was extremely successful.
Rosa Parks, was a Civil Rights activist who was best known for the incident on the Montgomery bus. Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat for a white male who demanded she seat herself in the ‘appropriate colored’ space located at the back of the bus for black men and women. Her defiance to the law that day became known to the world.
"Rosa Parks Biography -- Academy of Achievement." Academy of Achievement Main Menu. Web. 14 Mar. 2010. .
In The Rebellious Life of Rosa Parks, Jeanne Theoharis attempts to deconstruct the caricature of Rosa Parks that has permeated throughout a sixty-year time span. Parks’ legacy has been reduced down to the narrative of a small, reticent seamstress whose refusal to surrender her seat to a white man on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama landed her in jail and subsequently birthed a movement. This white-washed projection of Rosa Parks led many to believe that Parks’ matriarchal role of the civil rights movement was purely apolitical. However, in her biography of Parks, Jeanne Theoharis takes on the task of fully describing Parks’ political background and perspectives and to completely obliterate the myth that Parks had little or no political interest.