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Free Copies of the Young Readers Edition of The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks

March 19, 2023

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Every year students learn about Rosa Parks. Most learn the myth that she was simply tired when she refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus to a white man. Some may learn that she was involved the NAACP before she refused to move on the bus or that she was not the first to resist Jim Crow seating.

However, the larger story of Rosa Parks offers crucial lessons for young people about a life of activism that is dangerous for the guardians of the status quo.

Mrs. Parks’ life is a tapestry of resistance, including and beyond her brave act on the bus in Montgomery. In fact, she spent more than half her life in Detroit — which Mrs. Parks called “the Northern promised land that wasn’t” — fighting segregation in housing, hospitals, and restaurants; protesting police murders of Black teenagers; organizing against sexual violence; working for Congressman John Conyers and getting to know Malcolm X.

These stories and more are in the young readers’ edition of The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks. Not only do young people find the book a gripping read, they also realize how egregious it is to, as Jeanne Theoharis says, “freeze Rosa Parks on the bus.” Rosa Parks’ life offers students a road map from the Civil Rights Movement to Black Lives Matter and #MeToo.

Join educators in teaching the whole truth about the rebellious Mrs. Parks.

Thanks to donations from Lush Cosmetics, Beacon Press, and Soledad O’Brien Productions with funding from The Ford Foundation, the Zinn Education Project is offering more than 2,500 sets of five copies of The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks to middle and high school public school teachers, school librarians, and teacher educators, who have a plan for using and promoting the text.

To request the books, respond to these questions on the form below

  1. Offer a description of how you will use these books in your curriculum.
  2. To help spread the word about the book, we ask recipients to plan to give it visibility. Tell how you might do that. It could be asking students to write reviews for Goodreads or other book platforms, student-created social media promotions for the book, a story from you about student responses to the book, a photo of your class with the book on social media, or other ideas you have.

Request Books

As long as you meet the criteria and respond to all the questions, as asked, the books will be shipped to you by the publisher. Other than with the publisher, we do not share your contact information. The offer is limited to the United States and no more than 30 sets per school district to allow for widespread distribution nationally.

This offer coincides with the release by Peacock of the documentary about Rosa Parks. The film, based on the book by Jeanne Theoharis and produced by Soledad O’Brien Productions, is streaming on Peacock.

Here are some tweets and stories from teachers who have already received their books.

Here are the locations where teachers have received sets of the book so far.

The red pins indicate states where anti-history education (“anti-CRT”) legislation has passed and the yellow pins represent states where legislation has been proposed or is moving through state legislature. See a detailed map from Education Week of the legislation.

Related Resources
Teaching Activities (Free)

The Rebellious Lives of Mrs. Rosa Parks

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow.
In this mixer lesson, students learn about Rosa Parks’ many decades of activism by taking on roles from various times in her life. In this way, students learn about her radicalism before, during, and long after the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Books: Non-Fiction

The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks: Young Readers Edition

Book — Non-fiction. By Jeanne Theoharis and Brandy Colbert. 2021.
This biography of Rosa Parks accessibly examines her six decades of activism, challenging young readers’ perceptions of her as an accidental actor in the Civil Rights Movement.

Books: Non-Fiction

The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks

Book — Non-fiction. By Jeanne Theoharis. 2013. 320 pages.
A revealing window into Rosa Parks’ politics and years of activism.

This Day in History

Nov. 27, 1955: Rosa Parks Attends Meeting About Emmett Till

Rosa Parks attended a mass meeting about Emmett Till days before her refusal to give up her seat on the bus.

Rosa Parks Highlander School | Zinn Education Project
This Day in History

Dec. 1, 1955: Rosa Parks Refuses to Give Up Her Seat

Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama.

This Day in History

Sept. 1, 1956: Clinton Desegregation Crisis

The White Citizens Council and Ku Klux Klan launched full-scale rioting in Clinton, Tennessee in response to school desegregation.

Peoples Tribunal Detroit
This Day in History

Aug. 30, 1967: People’s Tribunal in Detroit

People’s Tribunal on killing of three young men at Algiers Motel in Detroit.

This Day in History

March 14, 1968: King Speaks About the “Other America” in the North

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave the speech titled “The Other America” focusing on economic inequalities and white complicity in the North.

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