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A New Lesson on Rosa Parks
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Dear Zinn Education Project friends,
I was captivated as I listened to Jeanne Theoharis's stories about Mrs. Rosa Parks in the People's Historians Online sessions with Jesse Hagopian.
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LeRoy W. Henderson
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Hearing story after story about different points in Mrs. Parks' life, it struck me that these would lend themselves to an activity in which students could encounter the breadth her activism ---- which, of course, features her role sparking the Montgomery Bus Boycott, but also includes "rebellious" instances before she refused to give up her seat, and then later, after she had moved to Detroit. Theoharis talks about how conventional curricular accounts of Mrs. Parks "trap her on the bus." I thought it would be important for students to be exposed to a fuller portrait of her lifelong work as an activist for justice.
The activity I wrote, with the help of Jeanne Theoharis, The Rebellious Lives of Mrs. Rosa Parks, is a kind of "mixer," which many of you are familiar with. But instead of roles that ask students to represent different individuals in history, this activity invites students to imagine themselves as Rosa Parks, at different points in her life: resisting sexual assault, fighting on behalf of a wrongly convicted teenager, organizing young people in the NAACP Youth Council, marching against housing discrimination in Detroit, joining the anti-apartheid movement, and much more.
The activity has just been posted at the Zinn Education Project. I hope you will consider using it with students and sharing it with colleagues. If you do, please let us know. At a time when inequality based on race, wealth, and power grows wider and wider, our students desperately need models of people who dedicated their lives to making the world a better, fairer place. Mrs. Rosa Parks' life offers students just such an example.
Thank you for your important work during this strange and perilous time.
Warmly,
Bill Bigelow
Zinn Education Project co-director for Rethinking Schools
P.S. I also wanted to make sure you knew that the wonderful People's Historians Online sessions continue through June. This week's conversation, with Robyn Spencer and Mary Phillips, focuses on the role of women in the Black Panther Party. Please continue to join us on Fridays.
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It's True: We Need Your Help
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ith no corporate sponsors, and with no costs for teachers and students to use our online resources,
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