Rosa Parks - Mighty Times

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks took the bus home from work.  In one of her books, she tells us what happened when she was told to give up her seat:

One evening in early December, 1955, I was sitting in the front seat of the colored section of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama.  The white people were sitting in the white section.  More white people got on, and they filled up all the seats in the white section.  When that happened, we black people were supposed to give up our seats to the whites.  But I didn't move.  The white driver said, "Let me have those front seats."  I didn't get up.  I was tired of giving in to white people.

Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks:  My Story

After Rosa Parks defied the law in Montgomery, Alabama - refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man - the modern-day civil rights movement was effectively launched. 

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. - not well-known nationally before Rosa Parks was arrested - also rose to prominence as he urged Montgomery's African-American citizens to participate in a bus boycott.

The recipient of numerous honors in her life, Mrs. Parks wrote four books.  They are:

Rosa Parks: My Story, by Rosa Parks with Jim Haskins;

Quiet Strength, by Rosa Parks with Gregory J. Reed;

Dear Mrs. Parks: A Dialogue With Today's Youth, by Rosa Parks with Gregory J. Reed (which won the NAACP's Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work, (Children's) in 1996); and

I am Rosa Parks - a book for preschoolers by Rosa Parks with Jim Haskins.

This video is a clip from the award-nominated "Mighty Times:  The Legacy of Rosa Parks."

See, also:

Rosa Parks, Mother of the Modern-Day Civil Rights Movement

Credits

"Mighty Times: The Legacy of Rosa Parks"

Director
Robert Houston

Producers
Robert Hudson
Bill Couturié
Dulanie M. Ellis
 
Writer
Robert Houston

Cinematographer
Geoffrey George

Editor
Nancy Barber

Musical Score
Kevin Saunders Hayes

Soundtrack features:
Lowell Fulson
Big Bill Broonzy
Ray Charles
John Lee Hooker

Running time: 40 minutes

Released:  2002