working-class people came with slaves in order to enhance, are an interesting test about texas itself. regular people and slavery. we have a little more time. if anyone would like to ask a question. okay. would you please move to the mike. >> when i looked at the first lady's great granddad in the new york times and his half-brother and almost looked like the same person, you took the same person and bit him in caramel. that was astounding to me. i don't know if the similarities were that profound throughout but that seemed to me -- anyone who saw the picture and that is

why you selected those photographs, i would like to hear about that in terms of the true similarities and i would love to hear any comments you would care to share when families got together for the unveiling and two sides of the family together to describe in appropriate ways the interaction between them. >> the families do find a resemblance. i was actually in nashville recently where another member of the shields family and others descended from the white shield family pass along a photo that shifts the brother of her owner was remarking on the resemblance. dolphus who lived in birmingham, the first lady's great great grandfather lived there at the same time his wife's half brother lived there and they

lived not far. his brother lived kind of clothes to wear dolphus had a carpentry shop. people who knew him said he had a white visitor who would come and talk, of which was spun usual at that time and a very segregated city for the end of his life. this woman said that was his brother. the question of whether or not these connections even if they didn't talk about them, whether they did extend beyond millvinia and dolphus's father. as for this reunion, it was really fascinating. it was millvinia's descendant and descendants of millvinia's the owners lose some came from georgia and drove from alabama. we had a ceremony at clayton

county with this monument in honor of millvinia and her life. a kind of exchange stories about what they had known. they looked at each other's photographs, they had a meal together, there is an effort underway in the town where millvinia lived in kingston, georgia, to do some commemorative work. she was in a cemetery, church cemetery, an effort to try to get one and i hear from the shield's family often about when that will happen because they would like to come. i don't know how long this kind of connection and interest will last that they are still interested. >> any more questions? we have just a little bit of

time? no time. thank you, rachel. thank you so much. >> i doubt with a number of other religious cult that had similar views and it had been -- i had found that his some of these cases, when they are needing such a group, the and make certain processes as to things that are going to happen. when these things don't happen, they lose face. then they have to do something to make it in so that they don't lose face. he had everything going for him and he wasn't about to give that

a period when of the situations of this kind turned about the tape and had a similar groups in the past was that he would need to do something in order to bring about his prophecy of this armageddon, where law enforcement could hold out and they would all die and then three days would be resurrected and eat the good cheeses at that point may be living in the garden of eden. >> jeanne theoharis recounts political activism. the author argues that mrs. parks is often only remembered for her bus to rest in montgomery, alabama but her involvement in the movement was far more extensive. this is about an hour five.

>> good evening. my name is georgette norman at the georgia parks museum. on behalf of the chancellor, faculty, body, and welcome her to our campus. when i ask you a question, how are you politicized? how are you acculturated? i want you to think about that. as they honor rosa parks a hundred earth day, we have the honor of having with us dr. jeanne theoharis, who asked the question of rosa parks. what was behind that? that no heard round the world. consider two letters that open the floodgates of mother's day

vergence dreams into that one vast ocean. at the time risk in terms of gender, class and race. the question is, what it behind that kind of courage? one makes one take those stands and more importantly, what is the price paid for having done so? .your jeanne theoharis and to some of those questions and she writes it in her new book, "the rebellious life of mrs. rosa parks" "the rebellious life of mrs. rosa parks" was born and spent about six weeks and moved to milwaukee, wisconsin where she was raised.

as professor of political science at brooklyn college. she's also profounder of educators for civil liberty. she's the author of numerous books on the civil rights movement and politics of race in the united state. including this co-author of school of thought, students talk back to a segregated nation on the abilities of urban schools. jeanne theoharis received her a.b. from harvard college and a phd in american culture from the university of michigan. she's the author or co-author of six books and numerous articles on the black freedom struggle of an contemporary politics of race in the united states. her latest book, the one you here tonight from which she will be reading its parks says that

quiet seamstress, with one single at birth of modern civil rights movement. she rebuilt the civil rights movement radical who fought to expose and eradicate the american racial past in jobs, schools, public services and criminal justice. help me welcome dr. jeanne theoharis. [applause] >> i am so delighted to be here. my book came out last week and it wouldn't have been possible without the help and support and vision of many, many people, including many people here in montgomery, who talked to name, who pointed me towards materials and archives.

this book, and many people in detroit did the same thing, who are committed to telling it bigger, broader story, not just one day of rosa parks, but a life of being rebellious that she would put it. i am tremendously grateful to be here tonight and to church at norman and many people i interviewed for this book here in montgomery and in detroit that certainly this book is far better. it is on a most well-known american american stories even among elementary schoolers. on the evening december 1st 1955, rosa parks to the bus home after work. on the front of the best field and one white man with a standing, the bus driver asked her to move. parks refused in the driver had her arrested. her arrest galvanize the african community and a year-long voip out of the citizens to.

this catapulted a young martin luther king jr. international leadership and ushered in the modern civil rights movement. one year later, upon order from the supreme court, montgomery buses were desegregated. but despite center placement in that story and subsequent memorialization of the civil rights movement, we rarely see the story surrounding history from her give. hidden in plain sight, she is the symbol, but rarely the story. parks has been awarded the nation's highest honor, congressional gold medal, presidential medal of freedom, the first woman from such an african-american ever to ayin honoring the nation's capital. next monday, february 4, the post office will issue a stamp in her honor. despite these honors, her legacy is that reduce that quiet

seamstress on a day. that table is used to show how far we have come to put the history of the civil rights movement firmly in the past. her quietness is celebrated over and over again. particularly because we are in this historic space where she made this stand, it seems fitting to return to that founding moment and its broader history and look at it anew. seeing these events from her dose changes in deep entirely understand the civil rights movement and for substantial ways. first, it gives us a much longer his jury, more than a decade of the political work that parks and a cadre of activists that montgomery did to till the soil for a movement to montgomery. paquette, it shows the courageous -- how courageous in fact parks by standbys and the

key roles many people, including many women played in the black freedom struggle and the sacrifice of suffering it produced for parks and her family. third, it shows the breadth of the civil rights movement as the parks family are forced to leave my camera and spends more than half her political life in detroit, challenging racism of the jim crow north. finally it provides less insight for what it takes to make change in a moment and over the course of a lifetime and what her legacy asks of his. so who was rosa parks before the boycott? parks had a history of being rebellious. she was raised by her mother and grandparents are toppers that you stand up for herself. her father was a fellow of marcus garvey. there was no education provided for but children past the sixth

grade from a separate sacrifice her mother sent her to the school for gross here in montgomery. brazil is a reserved grow, it is bit of a goody two shoes who follows cool prohibitions against dancing, movies, makeup and shorthaired, the shia to feisty side. when they were threatened by a wide holy, she picked up a brick and threatened to hit him. he stopped. when a young boy pushed him in front of his mother, she pushed back. when the mother threatened to kill her, she said he pushed me and i didn't want him pushing me. parks met and fell in love with raymond parks in 1931, the first real activist i ever met she says. when they married, raymond parks was working too for the scottsboro boys. dying young man had been caught riding the trains as many people

did during the great depression. to why women have been, not trained in the charts quickly turned and they were quickly charged and sentenced to death. raymond and a group of local people became the groundwork to defend the scottsboro boys and rosa joined bremen in this dangerous organizing. the meetings were secret. she recalls one late night meeting at house with guns covering the table and later reflect it she was so scared she forgot to offer any refreshment. ..

the with change the course of american history. she tries to three times to vote. a part of the process was a test that the test was administered differently than for white people. on the third time she took it, sure she had passed and she would consider bringing suit if she didn't pass she copied down all the questions and answers, the registrar saw her and she got. the final was once you were registered people were required to pay for taxes, not just from the year they got registered,

but from all the years back to when they had been eligible to vote for a dollar 50 for each year so for rosa parks the was $18 which was an extraordinary amount of money they found. nixon and rosa parks wanted to transform the naacp to a more activist branch so in 1945, nixon runs for president and wins. parks again is elected secretary. many middle class members of the ranch wanted a social club and opposed the politics and the road to the national naacp office they don't like him and they think that he's a dictator for his politics when and they try to get that shakira national office to work in. the work on the west side. she is living in the cleveland

projects with her husband and then her mother moves there. nixon and parks are reelected to have the montgomery branch and come to have the conference at the naacp. it's also to sort of protest and challenge the legal inching, the prosecuting of black men for sexual fines who had either stepped out of place or were having consensual relationships with white women and so these charges were used to sort of put people back in their place. rosa parks traveled the state taking testimony and trying to get people to sign affidavits to the justice department that they would send to the national office and the justice department this work was

incredibly dangerous. they were scared to sign affidavits much to the dismay. i think when they hear the term naacp today it sounds somewhat mild but this was anything but my old. only a few were courageous enough to do it. in the mid-40s, rosa parks attended naacp workshops organized by baker and she finds her tremendously inspiring and becomes a mentor for rosa parks and will stay with rosa parks when she comes to alabama and montgomery. they try to demonstrate their opposition, but most of these cases go nowhere. they were trying to get the

young people to get a forceful stand against segregation and putting a set and at the main library because the main library wasn't open to black patrons. they had to go to the color brand to get books so this that she and the young people could go and try to get to the main branch to serve them. on the suggestion of the of what the civil rights supporter in the leftist rosa parks decides to attend a two week workshop at the highlander school on the school segregation. highlander was an adult training school and tennessee and by the 1950's turned its attention. it had always been an interracial space, but by the 50's and particularly in the wake of the brown decision and the supreme court's unwillingness to put any timetable on the school

segregation, so 1955 was that sort of classic language the supreme court backs off any implementation and so activists who ran highlander and rosa parks see that they are going to have to do this themselves so for two weeks in august of 1955 rose a parks goes to tennessee and joins the other people to develop a plan for the implementation of the school segregation. this is tremendously good for her spirit. it's the first time she feels that she could speak and eat with people without hostility. she likes we do not in the morning and having white people make her breakfast. she ran many of the workshops and is a teacher who had been fired because she refused to give up her membership at the naacp is another huge inspiration and mentor and she had my years her when she feels

so nervous and sort of worn down. like many organizing training workshops to go around and everybody is supposed to say what they are going to do when they go back and rosa parks says well, nothing is ever going to happen in montgomery. it is the confederacy, white resistance is to be enormous, and the community isn't unified and it won't stick together so i am going to work with the young people. so, the idea that rosa parks just one day up and does what she did mrs. the courage, the fortitude and the frustration that laid the groundwork for her action. okay so the various misconceptions that i think most of you know she wasn't sitting in the white section, she wasn't particularly tired that day, she wasn't a plant. she required tremendous courage in part because she and many other people had stands on the bus against segregation that had

gone nowhere. the bus driver carried a gun. her act was not the first for the third. in fact a number of black people in the decades since world war ii had made stands on the bus. her neighbor in 1950 had been killed by police for his stand on the bus. a 15-year-old who had been arrested in march had been manhandled by police. a stunned the community and parks raised money for her case but no mass movement has emerged. on that december evening, she got off work deciding to wait for a less crowded bus she goes to the drug store to pick up a few things about 5:30 she takes a seat in the middle section. in the third stop the bus sits up and a man is left standing and by the terms of segregation at that time, for people are going to have to get after that

one white man to sit. the driver tells the people in the middle road three reluctantly according but pushed as far as she could be pushed she decides to stand back to get out and sliding over to the window they say i didn't get off my feet because i was tired but that isn't true. i wasn't tired physically or any more than i was at the end of a working day. no, the only tie year i was was getting in but she didn't believe me any movement would ensue from her act. there is no evidence of any plan or indication until the moment presented itself that rosa parks knew she could summon the courage to move from her seat. it is likely that she'd like many particularly after the unrest talked about she would do if she were asked to give up her seat to a white person but

thinking or even talking about it is be able to act in the moment different than most of us know. but what makes her different is in that moment she sees the opportunity and summons the will to stand fast. on sure that she would get off the bus alive, she described as one of the worst days of her life. in interviews lately she had met other people that joyner and describes her stand in less than triumphal terms. i felt i needed to get what i could in the protest of the way that i was being treated but she also contextualized her decision in her role as a political organizer. an opportunity was being given to me for what i have asked of others. as a part of a fledgling movement she thought she had the responsibility to act on behalf of that larger community. she had been pushing the young people in the council and had grown in the ways that adults in the community had hoped field our young people.

her decision to act was much from frustration with the lack of change the end of the belief that her particular action would alter anything. i simply did it because i thought nobody else would do anything. so back to the bus. blake gets off the bus and calls the supervisor that tells him to put her off the bus. that is the supervisor says. people are grumbling on the bus. she can't hear them but they are grumbling. they called the police and they come and could have just effected her from the bus and she believes that is what the police wanted to do. she overhears them saying something but bleak insists he wants her arrested and comes down after to sign the paperwork. she also in a number of interviews talks about finding the arrest irritating and allowing. and i love these words because i think at -- at the time she sees

this as a detour planning this workshop that weekend and now she's gotten herself arrested and she doesn't see this the moment is going to open up, she just sees it i've been arrested. she calls home some extent comes out to bail her out hours later. they go back to her apartment and nixon the says the case that he's been working for. raymond is worried for her safety but also that the community won't stay together and backed her into long run as it had happened with the case. but after some discussion, she decides to go forward. she calls up fred and he said new young black lawyer in town that had been mentoring and meeting with, so she calls him that night and he then called in

jo ann robinson who is the head of the council and is the women's political council that decides that right to act and called for a boycott on monday when they are to be arraigned in court. in the middle of the night robinson speaks into the state she's a professor and runs of 35,000 at 3 a.m. she calls xm. robinson doesn't call parks interestingly but she calls nixon and at five in the morning fix and starts making calls to the ministers in town because he learns and sees the need for the ministers to be on board so he calls reverend abernathy and then he calls the young minister in town by the name of reverend martin luther king who is new in town and whose churches very centrally located and nixon sees this as an ideal place to have the meeting.

it's not until the next day for lunch that rosa parks finds out about these plans when she goes. she often looks from her job to have lunch at the office and she finds out about the plan. meanwhile she had to schedule this workshop and only a couple kids coming and she is really disappointed and increasingly nervous so nobody comes and now they are planning to cover one day and she is worried. so the first day of the boycott is amazing. and she very much describes her best memory from that whole year of waking up that morning and seeing the bus mt. she goes to court and then after he goes back to the office to help out and i think that this

is evidence to her core political spirit. she doesn't go back to work that day. she doesn't go home, obviously it has been kind of a big day. she goes but because there's all these people calling the office and so she answers the phone. but she doesn't tell people that it's her. so she is answering the phone telling people what they need to know what is and saying this is me, this is rosa parks. and then meanwhile, that afternoon, he goes two m meeting that will burst the montgomery association so rosa parks is back up the office answering the phone while we can't -- and this is the beginning of the montgomery improvement association, the kind of seed, and then that might, 15,000 people packed the baptist church and the surrounding streets. thousands of people don't get in. virginia didn't get in, rosa

parks has to fight her way into the church and she is on the dalia stat de and given a tremendous standing ovation but does not speak. i do recall asking someone if they should say something, she later recalled, and said you've said enough and in a later interview she noted that she just sat up there. i think everyone spoke but me. it didn't bother me at that point. the boycott itself lasted 382 days maintained by tremendous unity, fund-raising and twice weekly mass meetings and an amazing the elaborate car pulled that was set up with 40 pick-up stations around the city where they charged the regular bus fare and they made it possible for people to go to work, to go to church, to go to doctors and shopping and other errands. people would use the sign to identify themselves.

attempt to break the boycott and the carvel people were often pelted with food, stones, urine and other things, the police continually pullover the carpoolers on real and imaginary violations. the white citizens council membership explodes, 14,000 members in the boycott the may year and the police commissioner jul and and then in february using an old book they indict 89 of the boycott leaders but instead of the organization this just further strengthens the result. rosa parks in much of that year is fund-raising. raising money and attention for the montgomery improvement association and the naacp. even though her own family is in serious financial trouble. she loses her job about a month into the boycott. she is working as an assistant tayler at montgomery and then

her husband is a barber at the air force base and they say -- they were forbid any talk of the boycott or "that blumenauer" and for a prada political man that is an untenable situation. so he also loses his job, so they are in serious economic trouble. a lot of that year she is across the country raising money to make this kind of amazing organization possible and also turning this local movement into a national struggle. so what happens afterwards? even though the boycott ends, they find it impossible to find any kind of steady work and they are still receiving constant death threats. her antics in want to start an independent voter registration

initiative for all of alabama and the idea that she would run at full time and would be based at the frederick law office they try to fund raise this, meanwhile this controversy kind if erupts behind closed doors in the montgomery improvement association about a paid political association for rosa parks. but nixon and parks are kind of on the outside, and so she isn't offered work. eight months later unable to find a job, dispirited, sort of on the situation facing death threats, they decide to leave and never to detroit where her brother is and she describes detroit as the promised land that was sent. she still struggles -- they still struggle to find work. she describes it in the ghetto. her health problems continue. she has developed ulcers during the boycott that continue to

plague her aunt and her in the hospital in 1960 but they cannot afford the bill seven given to collections. the suffering starts to get exposed, in particular the cover story by the magazine in 1960 and this sounds the alarm for the situation helps weed through the process. even in the midst of these difficulties she spends the second half of her life in detroit challenging the racial discrimination of the jim crow, housing, schools, jobs, police brutality. her description of detroit as the number a promised land that was and is a probable the winder that racial inequality was a national play, not a normality. rosa parks didn't find much different between the race

relations and montgomery ward attrite. in 1964 she volunteered for a political campaign by a civil rights lawyer by the name of john conyers who was running on a platform. she actually persuades martin luther king who isn't doing any kind of political endorsement. she prevails to come to detroit for john conyers this is an extremely crowded they need people running and conyers wins by less than 100 votes and attributes part of why he wins to rosa parks prevailing to come so one of the things is works in the office candling constituents

needs and doing community outreach on the issues like jobs, housing, welfare, and again this is a regularly in the first years she is part of his community present on the ground. they are becoming more ceremonial. degette a lot of flak for hiring rosa parks they receive all kind of hate calls and threats and she receives all kinds of hate letters and it sort of undeterred in the 1960's and 70's continues to work on the black power movement. rosa parks personal hero was malcolm x and she got to meet and hear him three times.

the first time was 1963 when he comes to be tried and gives a famous message to the grassroots and he had actually also wanted to meet her get a bank said known to the neutral friends such as the first time they meet. the last time they meet is actually the speech given as often referred to as the last message. it's the week before he's assassinated. it's actually a program being given to honor that the program and have a longer personal discussion that day. her political condition is a longstanding lifelong believer in self-defense, she has long believed that there needed to be black history in the curriculum. she has long been credible of the criminal justice system and has long fought for the political power and economic justice.

all of these political commitments intersect with the emerging black power movement of these things to support and take part in that. according to conyers, they have a heavy progressive streak about her that was uncharacteristic for the religious churchgoing lady. part of what they did is show up as congress put it she spoke with her presence. black nationalists who say that rosa parks was everywhere. she attended rallies and speeches and meetings and signed petitions, can offer lectures and immersed herself and all of the black history that she could get. she protested police brutality, spoke on behalf of black prisoners and helped found local defense committees. she didn't necessarily want to join the group's any more or give speeches but sought to use the stature to get attention for the cause and came out for things and leche groups use her

name. the detroit riot began about a mile from the house and was deeply saddened by the events that very much contextualized what was happening in the resistance to change the resistance to the civil rights demanded that had accrued over the decade. she could understand the uprising as a result of resistance to change the laws needed long before hand and that is her quote. she's always the the establishment of white people would antagonize and provoke violence when the people want to present themselves as human beings that come in there was always something to cut them down. those actions are in a larger history and a larger white resistance to take place in the people's tribunal. part of what happens in the detroit riot is that it becomes

a police riot. there's tremendous police violence and the most egregious they are killed at the motel there is no accountability the police are not invited and the media are not willing to pursue any stories about it so they hold of the people's tribunal as rosa parks serves on the jury she also was part of the local rebuilding effort and helps to be part of the virginia district council which builds probably the first shopping center in the country and fabrics ground in 1981. she helps run with aldridge and comes down to the county to support the movement there to give sort of one of his famous

speech is one of the first things he does on the pulpit is called and say mrs. parks is my hero because they had just been announced and were willing to stand in that county. they help to the poor people's movement for word after martin luther king was assassinated and goes to d.c. and speaks of the solidarity rally and attends the black power convention in philadelphia and is part of a group of people led the chicago democratic convention in 1968 that refuses to endorse any candidates. she attends the national black political convention in 1972 when it works on the defense committee for joann little, the wilmington ten, gary tyler, angela davis she's a longstanding opponent of the death penalty and the involvement in vietnam takes part in the brigade and helps the winter soldiers hearings

opposes apartheid and they joined tickets in the embassy against the apartheid in the u.s. complicity in helping to kind of prop up the government. eight days after 9/11, she joins harry belafonte and a number of civil rights activists to call for justice, not vengeance to decry any move to the war and insist that the united states work with an international law and in the international community to bring justice. so where do we go from here who? on the anniversary of the boycott last count, president obama had a picture of himself on the rosa parks thus setting in the rosa parks pos. as we know the post office will issue a stamp. she is as one of my colleagues put it the american version of the national st.. but her legacy asks much more

about the statute. and if we are going to claim her legacy as president obama did last month, then we must realize what it asks of us. rosa parks courage was the ability to make an independent stand even though she and others had done that before and nothing had changed. even when she understood the harm to make those stands over and over throughout the course of her life, even when the civil rights movement gained certain victories in the civil and voting rights act, she did not rest but continued on joining with old and new comrades in the struggle forward, not worried about what others would think of those alliances. honoring her legacy then means summoning a similar courage. it requires acknowledging that america is not opposed racial society and the plight of racial injustice is deep and manifest. it entails a commitment to the role she spent on a lifetime

known for in the criminal justice systems for the people of color and fair voting rights come educational access and equity and real assistance to the poor and to the u.s. war in occupation and black history in all parts of the curriculum. ..

but i also come to it as a political activist, so i think i should put that on the table. maybe search around the stars right after the funeral. i always come as many of us were, kind of stand and mesmerized by the seat of the national pageant made of her passing and away simultaneously honoring her, but then she becomes aesthetically, white, over and over why it, nodding rate and at odds about the best. so i did a talk sorted about her funeral and memorial is nation of the civil rights movement and the latest civil rights movement was memorialized to put it in the past to make this very narrow movement. and a colleague asked me to turn

that talk into an essay for a book she was editing. obviously i wanted a little more meat terms of who rosa parks was a nice start to the 10 i realize both how much of a story there was an icon to this research, the decade of research i did before the rosa parks spoke with on the civil rights movement in the north. certified the worksheet done in the north and all of the work she had done in and alongside this emerging black power movement was really anxious into name and really grabs me because here is sometimes most iconic story had been trained to tell for many years and yet it was so puzzling to me as i started this research that there was not a scholarly biography of her. i have to say sometimes people

ask me what the most surprising thing about vista parts? the most surprising thing is biased and very scholarly biography of her, that here we can say she's done this incredible national honor. everybody knows who she is and yet she hasn't gotten the treatment of a serious political figure. lincoln's biography numbers in the hundreds. but many figures have serious treatment and simultaneously we were comfortable with his children's version of rosa parks. so i also thought humbled by that. in some sense of hackers started doing that, doing that, i assume

they just can't remember what it is. and so i think it was that process of sordid scene of these themes in our history and simultaneously feeling like what was it and i'm hoping this book is just beginning that process. i think there's so much more that can be done on her. so i hope this is sort of the beginning. [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible]

[inaudible] >> for the second half of this book. half of the book basically takes place outside of the primary and that required a number of things. i did dozens of interviews and a ladder with people in detroit because as you allude to, there's an amazing number of interviews with rosa parks and a lot of them are done in detroit sidney john conyers office. and if they asked her what you think about the war in vietnam? today say what you think the congressman should doing? though they do not. so in many ways this was harder to find. a couple things help with it. the first is the black press and then the digitalization of the

black press that's happened and was an extraordinary resource because it meant i could look at decade's worth of many, many different black newspapers. even though people didn't tend to escalate about political opinions, they did notice when she would go. so this in some senses kind of the place they started in terms of trying to figure out how to tell the post montgomery story. the political colleague signature eight to get much more texture to this kind of what she's doing in the 60s and 70s and 80s. i can tell you some of my favorite stories. one of my favorite stories. two people another lawyer --

u.s. for the scout sisters are people remember that case last year. superman had basically assert this incredibly long prison sentence is for tiny drug churches. so the older man lawyer on the case. so he tells me to really interesting stories. the first is africa is started and it's right around the kind of issue of reparation. part of that group then breaks off and comes down to mississippi to set up the black nation. needless to say the fbi does not like they been so thursday surveilled and then this kind of a rate of fire and there's a shootout between the police and the rna and 11 members are

arrested and paraded through jackson half and one of the neighbors call us back to detroit and says this is happening. one of the members, so then cause conyers on faith and to get contraceptives to intercede and try to protect for these people don't just get killed because there's been a shootout of an officer. two had been shot and it's rosa parks who basically did on the phone calls until she gets an assurance in that weird way recite their not being hurt, but nobody will get hurt. they very much attribute her quickness to saving their lives and a mario bertinelli says she would then call.

he's in prison for the next five years on conspiracy charges and she repeatedly calls and says hello this is rosa calling. just to show them she was watching. so to me that speaks to both her firmness and disability unsure and ability to kind of do things. so ed von ran a bookstore and each rate and he talked about her. they would go to the bookstore of the time. there is all these discussion groups and activists groups that came out of the bookstore and she would attend many of their forearms. he was saying to me, he was like i just started aims and i feel like it's rosa again. she would just be everywhere he would say and she would again undaunted not worry what people

are going to think if she showed up to listen to some radical speaker that she went where she wanted to go. one of the people who worked with her so she his huge car apparently, some big white american car and mrs. parks is pretty small crevices should be driving her big car to all these events and the image and shut the position that she was going in her big car. let me stop there. so there's many stories in part in interviews and a partner is able to do things like fine little mention of something, but that would often be enough to trigger people's memory or vice versa. so how i found out there's an interview with dorothy dewberry

and she said we went down to lounge and i looked at the big mass meetings there it is listed that she gives the opening. that makes sense when carmichael comes to detroit months later right there in the michigan chronicle, the black newspaper, she said in a front row and calls out to her. so it helped me tease these strands together. so a lot of what i did was to so these little threads into a kind of bigger tapestry. but again, i hope i started it and i hope people are going to go even further than i could. [inaudible]

>> i think we think we know her. and yet now, because we think we know her, so for instance, there's this new incredibly kind of vibrant scholarship on the black freedom struggle and all of these new scholars doing great work. but first i think sometimes you just assume it and then and i think i is sadness, too, that somebody else had done not a renewable issue as and we need unearth other activities.

i mean, it speaks to what i try to talk about a little bit at the beginning, this paradox of the way she is honored, but in some sense strapped in this very small way. so she's kind of relegated to being assembled. the symbols don't have to have a whole history and i think that is related to her being abundant. there is a gender aspect of this, too both in terms of how we imagine what her story has invited not in the stories we ask. so i've been on the trail i called this historian who this is one of his specialties and a sort of sort of says, if she did something, we would know about it. i said i had the documents. i'm trying to figure out a bigger story. but there is this sense that

because she's so famous but she did these other things that know it, but it's the opposite that because she's so famous that it scares all the other things in the much broader history of the broader coalitions. [inaudible] >> sure, this is awesome. >> -- based on what she said about the funeral. she was generalized in the museum african-american has jury before she was shipped to washington d.c. a lot of what you said about the ceremonial missing d.c. was true. the people who stood in line hours upon hours, days upon days stretched around the corner that building, a lot of her history is in and it total memory of individuals who knew her, which

they might part of the reason you're having a hard time pulling it out because people in detroit no rosa parks. people know what she did. they know about the macabre aspect obviously because of his national, but those who lived in detroit know what she did in the later movement. my mother is in the labor movement, so i saw her in that role is my mother who was the first black secretary at the uaw. people know what she did and the problem you're going to have is because of oral history, a lot of people that knew her intimately argon. the history is gone with them. so the perspective you get will be painted because they will be filtered to the eye of people who really did know her as well. >> i think what people did in terms of her passing on the ground and the people are

standing in line, the people standing outside during her funeral, many people across the country did memorials for her. and in the book, i'm trying to dry distinction between her national funeral -- and i think were going to see this on a day with the same tenniel. i think many people will be making real meaning and talking about the sensitive legacy. but the other way to centennial is going to be used on monday is to put the movement in the past. in some sense of the feel good about ourselves, look how great we are honoring rosa parks and that's why i think the danger lies. this is not just about parks. jesus is that the civil rights movement and martin luther king and she was very disappointed.

she tries really hard for a king holiday and she sees the king holiday turning to this procedure may think that it now is in the substance of the activation he starts to get laws in the holiday. i imagine she might have the same critique and some of the ways she is honored in the substance of her. let me tell another story. during the boycott, local 600 monster bring rosa park to detroit to speak to the vocal. local 600 is a real militant local in the uaw. they had been purged and is very much seen as a troublemaking local. so walter reuther opposes local 600 wanted to bring rosa parks to detroit, that they raised

money and bring her anyways, and it's interesting because seven years later, he seems like this kind of rosa for right stallworth, but it wasn't always fair. so they bring her to detroit and most of the hotels industry are not open to black people, so they put her in the garfield mattel and she makes a number of important connections at that meeting that she has been going to try and personally and politically when they move back -- not move back, moved there. so she has a long-standing relationship with lack labor and interestingly, the detroit he is a very big, but in some sense in

a series of very middle-class and not very act of this branch and when she first moved there. this little naacp chapter and river rouge. reverberation is in detroit, but also full of auto workers, local 600 workers in particular. his fat little naacp group tickets the national naacp to help rosa parks. that little chapter is super interesting. they cut a very different path. they are doing all sorts of boycott of the banks because they are not hiring black people and then actually pass a resolution calling on the national naacp to come out again his assassination. obviously the national naacp doesn't go for that too much.

so does this refurbish a dirt remake the national naacp and gets the naacp to help her step in. so she has kind of a long history with labor and really also was like a huge protector and supporter of her particularly in a series, which are very hard years for her family. again i'm talking about 60, 61, those years. >> i don't have a question, but i've got several comments i'd like to make. since the book arrived at our

house two or three days ago, i read as much as i could because i wanted to see what you had written before i talked with you again and i'm very much impressed with your characterization of mrs. parks in those days. well written. i look forward to reading the rest of the book. second, when mrs. parks in 1955 told us later on while she was there she decided she would never again give a perceived on the bus, which he can feed sent to her characterization of her being a real activist and the kind of person who is full of bravery. the third comment. you may or may not be aware of the fact that many young people that she lacked in the naacp youth council are active participants in the churches in society here in montgomery today

after all these years and the fourth travail comment. there's a period of time and i was was with john conyers erratically from time to time and every time i saw him, he would complete his domain member of congress had a staff person who got more invitations to speak. >> it's only this funny story. at some point in the midst of it, they have a wage reduction salary attacks about it is the only wage reduction salary ever had because she was feeling guilty she was traveling so much in doing so much public appearances and was worried he would feel that she was taking advantage or not living up to her responsibilities, so you think of course i want you doing those things. even to him that was so horrifying that there is rosa parks thing you should reduce my

salary. i'm doing all these public appearances. but yeah. are there other -- >> i have to make comment and that is detached about rosa parks and asked what are you going to do. then you think about children today and the only thing they know really is a seat on the bus. we live basically in a soundbite world, so we only got a soundbite. how do we get to uncover and look what is beneath all of that? that is what is important if you live in this world there's more and more soundbite, how to begin to look at and ask ourselves what is this really mean. that brings me to the fact that i think we have to again look at

the fact of what that stood for. especially now, for me at the museum, what rosa parks said this taught us to do the right thing instead of the easy thing. she could have easily gotten off the bus. most times you did it begin paying at least they were going to get back to it and we never do. others talk about her and think about her as we honor her on this hundredth birthday, we begin to think about rightness inexpedient v. and sometimes they have to stop the bleeding. once it has stopped, we have to look at what's right. >> thank you are often when i'm teaching that moment she sat highlander and she's like

nothing's ever going to happen and people are going to a unified because that is the fear people have today. my students often put back on the series and it's like back in the day so much for genocide. i wish i lived back in that day. black people today aren't unified. and these are the things these people grappled with. history doesn't present itself like a neon. history is happening, please step a. it's scary and the kind of worry if we think about the weekend before the first year of the boycott, the words we have other worries they had and so i think also humanizing the history so you can see how to make those kinds of choices.

by humanizing it can also see how people make choices and were able to make choices. so as the story goes when eating accent cause that morning, and says can you call me back? i am brand-new here. we have a one-month old baby. at 6:00 in the morning. can you call me back? he doesn't know he's martin luther king and neon. he's just martin luther king. he has the conviction, but at 6:00 in the morning and he has a new baby. when nixon caused them back, he wants to do it and nixon jokes francisco because i've been telling people to come to your church anyways. but i think this detail also makes it easier to imagine how

we do it ourselves and that's the other reason for a more detailed look at her and her life among other civil rights is jury is that i think it gives us a different way over. >> here's some of the latest headlines surrounding the publishing industry this last week:

>> i have dealt with a number of other religious cult that has similar philosophies and it had then nine -- i had found that in some of these faces, when they are meeting such a group that they make certain prophecies as the two things that are going to happen. when these things don't have income that they begin to lose face. when they lose face, they have to do some thing to make it happen so that they don't lose