Rosa Parks being fingerprinted in 1956 (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
Rosa Parks became one of the great symbols of the civil rights movement after she sparked the Montgomery bus boycott in Alabama in 1955 when she refused to give up her seat to a white man.
But we don't really know very much about the woman who passed in 2005 at 92, notes Detroit Free Press reporter Julie Hinds.
That could change with “The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks,” a new documentary based on a 2013 biography by Jeanne Theoharis. The film shows just how radical and extensive her efforts were to push for justice, the Freep reports.
Veteran journalist Soledad O’Brien, an executive producer, says:
“Rosa Parks, in many, many ways, was really a complete badass. She was just incredibly tough.
“I think a lot of people in Detroit actually know this story better than people outside of Detroit because they know all the work that she did in civil rights. And so this narrative of a little old lady who just one day was too tired to get out of her seat is just not accurate. She was tired of being pushed around is really what she was tired of.”
The film, which premiered Thursday at New York City’s Tribeca Film Festival, will stream on NBC's Peacock service later this year.
People in Detroit and elsewhere can see it via the Tribeca at Home virtual screening program, starting at 6 p.m. Saturday and running through Sunday June 26.
Below is a 1995 interview:
