Rosa Parks Was Arrested 60 Years Ago Today

Posted on December 1, 2015 at 9:23 am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBzYV_eATGY

Today and every day we pay tribute to one of the greatest heroes of the 20th century, Rosa Parks, who would not give up her seat on the bus and fought all her life for equal rights. “Some people say I was tired” when she refused the bus driver’s order to move to the back of the bus, but as she explained in her autobiography, “The only tired I was was tired of giving.”

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Documentary Race and Diversity

Happy 100th Birthday, Rosa Parks

Posted on February 4, 2013 at 11:01 am

Today — and every day — we salute the vision and courage of Rosa Parks, not just for what she did one day in being arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus to a white passenger, but for a lifetime of commitment to the cause of equality. Contrary to what many people have written and said about her, the decision to break the law and get arrested was not an impulsive one and it was not because she was tired that day. It was a deliberate strategy from an active member of the local NAACP to challenge the barbarity of the laws enforcing segregation. Her modesty and grace made her a good choice but we should not forget her strength and sacrifice in the cause of justice. We can best honor her example by finding your way to bring greater justice to the world.

The US Postal Service has issued a new stamp in her honor.

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List: Women’s History Month Movies

Posted on March 9, 2012 at 3:57 pm

For Women’s History Month, try some of these feature films about women of extraordinary courage, intelligence, determination, and achievement.

1. Erin Brockovich Julia Roberts won an Oscar for this story about a clerk in a law firm who helped win the largest toxic tort settlement in U.S. history for the people who had been damaged by inappropriately and illegally disposed chemicals.

2. Norma Rae Sally Field won an Oscar for this story based on union organizer Chrystal Lee Jordan.

3. The Miracle Worker Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke both won Oscars for this story of two extraordinary women, teacher Annie Sullivan and her deaf and blind student Helen Keller.

4. A League of Their Own While the men were at war for a brief time in the 1940’s there was a women’s professional baseball league and this is their story.

5. Funny Girl Barbra Streisand won an Oscar for playing Fanny Brice, one of the most popular performing artists of the early 20th century.

6. The Rosa Parks Story Angela Bassett stars as the woman whose refusal to give up her seat on the bus began the Civil Rights movement.

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Inspired by a true story Lists

Eyes on the Prize (Part 1)

Posted on January 17, 2011 at 8:00 am

A+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	NR
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Smoking, drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Historical violence
Diversity Issues:	The theme of the series

This is the story of the civil rights movement, from 1952-1965. Interviews and archival footage tell the story of the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education that declared school segregation unconstitutional and the Montgomery bus boycott that forced the South to begin to allow equal access in public accommodations. As momentous as those events were, they were even more significant in what came next — decades of social, legal, and cultural upheavals that would lead to the Civil Rights Act, the 1967 Supreme Court decision in Loving v. Virginia abolishing the laws that prohibited inter-marriage, and, a generation later, the country’s first African-American President. The bigotry is shocking to us today, which is all the more reason we need this documentation. And the heroes are here: Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Thurgood Marshall, and more.

The PBS series, its sequel, and the companion volumes by Juan Williams are an indispensable reminder of our past and inspiration for our future. The struggle continues.

I’m not where I want to be.
I’m not where I’m going to be.
But thank God, I’m not where I was.

Rosa Parks Changed History on This Date

Posted on December 1, 2009 at 10:00 am

On Thursday December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a seamstress and a volunteer secretary for the NAACP, was sitting in the section of a public bus reserved for black passengers. As she rode, the seats designated for white riders were filled and the driver told her and three other seated black passengers to get up so the whites could sit. She refused and she was arrested.

“People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired,” she wrote, “but that isn’t true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”

A young minister, new in town, the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, led the bus boycott in protest of her arrest. It is important to remember how modest the demands were. King’s group did not ask that the buses be fully integrated. They only asked that the black riders should not have to move. When the segregation was ruled unconstitutional, Dr. King circulated a memo to remind the black community that not all white people supported segregation and that they should be courteous, even in the face of insults. He urged them to maintain “a calm and loving dignity” and to “pray for the oppressor and use moral and spiritual force to carry on the struggle for justice.”

Scholastic has some good teaching materials on Rosa Parks and the boycott. Older children and adults will appreciate Angela Basset’s performance in The Rosa Parks Story and Iris Little-Thomas as Mrs. Parks in Boycott.