More Than a Symbol: 'The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks'

(a lengthy, worthwhile read)

More Than a Symbol: ‘The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks’
10/17/2022 by Janell Hobson
“We know the story of the bus boycott. Everybody does, but there was so much more to know,” said Johanna Hamilton, who co-directed a new documentary with Yoruba Richen, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks.



“I never told anybody my feet were tired,” said civil rights icon Rosa Parks in a new documentary, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks. (Courtesy of Peacock)

A new documentary on the extraordinary life of civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks (1913-2005) premieres this week on Peacock, NBC’s streaming channel. Co-directed by Yoruba Richen and Johanna Hamilton and executive-produced by Soledad O’Brian, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks does much to prove she was more than a symbol. This issue manifests in the depiction of the unveiling of the Rosa Parks statue in the National Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol in 2013. During the unveiling ceremony, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) spoke of the civil rights leader who refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus on Dec. 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Ala.—reducing the history-changing moment to a “simple act” in which “she was tired.” This well-told, “tired” and worn-out narrative about Parks misses the full thrust of her strategic aims in resisting the laws of segregation at the time. This is a woman who, earlier that summer, attended the interracial Highlander Center in Tennessee, learning strategies of nonviolent resistance. The film, which does much to centralize the power of Parks’ voice, lets her speak for herself: “I never told anybody my feet were tired.”

Other voices round out this exquisite and revelatory history of one of our most revered women in the U.S. Patrisse Cullors, co-founder of Black Lives Matter, warns of reducing Parks’ actions to a simple act. “When we devoid a simple act of strategy, it then becomes easy to fix racism.” Historian Mary Frances Berry expands on this, suggesting not an easy fix but a smokescreen, since the statue unveiling occurred the same day that oral arguments were heard in the Shelby v. Holder Supreme Court case, which gutted the Voting Rights Act that year. “The irony is that Rosa Parks was at the march from Montgomery to Selma, and was part of the movement to get the Voting Rights Act passed in the first place,” Berry says. “And here they are enhancing voter suppression on that same day.” Fellow historian Robin D. G. Kelley describes the statue as an “erasure” of her legacy, while Jeanne Theoharis, author of The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, on which the documentary is based, refers to the symbol as a “trap.”


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(Courtesy of Peacock)

The documentary, running for 96 minutes, successfully tells this longer history by making use of interviews with talking head experts, relatives, friends and community members. It also incorporates archival photographs—made vivid through 3D visualizations and colorization in one instance—along with video footage of Rosa Parks herself among other civil rights leaders. It lets us hear Rosa Parks’ voice in both audio and visual recordings while relying on actor LisaGay Hamilton to narrate her letters and other personal writings.

“We really wanted to lead with her voice,” Richen said, “because people haven’t gotten a chance to hear her talk. So that was also a guiding principle in how we made the film.” Hamilton added, “Even though she’s held up as a national heroine, she gets stripped of her lifelong history. So, that’s what we’re aiming to correct and examine.” In the documentary, we learn of Rosa Parks’ radicalism and activism that informed her momentous action on a Montgomery bus, as well as her quiet and humble demeanor (part of the reason she is often overlooked). Her determination and quiet resistance made an impression on so many, including the great anti-apartheid freedom fighter and future South African president Nelson Mandela, who sought out Parks from a long stretch of VIP guests greeting him in Detroit in 1990 during his first visit to the U.S. after his release from prison after 27 years. He had read about her during his incarceration and embraced her as a fellow freedom fighter.


(Courtesy of Peacock)
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(Courtesy of Peacock)

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(Courtesy of Peacock)

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The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks airs Wednesday, Oct. 19, on Peacock.


https://msmagazine.com/2022/10/17/the-rebellious-life-of-mrs-rosa-parks/