Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks

This 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. "In the first sweeping history of Parks's life, Theoharis shows us that Parks not only sat down on the bus, but stood on the right side of justice for her entire life.” —Julian Bond, chairman emeritus, NAACP.
Examines the historical icon's six decades of activism, challenging perceptions of her as an accidental actor in the civil rights movement.
2014 NAACP Image Award Winner: Outstanding Literary Work–Biography/Autobiography2013 Letitia Woods Brown Award from the Association of Black Women HistoriansPresenting a powerful corrective to the popular iconography of Rosa Parks as the quiet seamstress who with a single act birthed the modern civil rights movement, scholar Jeanne Theoharis excavates Parks’s political philosophy and six decades of activism. Theoharis masterfully details the political depth of a national heroine who dedicated her life to fighting American inequality and, in the process, resurrects a civil rights movement radical who has been hidden in plain sight far too long. This revised edition includes a new introduction by the author, who reflects on materials in the Rosa Parks estate, purchased by Howard Buffett in 2014 and displayed by the Library of Congress in February 2015. Theoharis contextualizes this rich material—made available to the public for the very first time and including more than seven thousand documents—and deepens our understanding of Parks’s personal, financial, and political struggles.