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Jeanne Theoharis: "The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks"

February 6, 2013
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Born in rural Alabama 100 years ago, Rosa Parks grew up picking cotton from sunrise to sunset. Raised by a devoted single mother, she attended segregated schools and faced daily oppression in the Jim Crow south. But contrary to popular myth, Parks had a long history of fighting back, even before she refused to give up her seat on that Montgomery bus: a young Parks once tossed a brick at a white boy who teased her brother. Later, Parks joined her NAACP branch and worked to register black voters and end housing discrimination. And her activism continued even after she left Alabama for Detroit. A new biography on the life of civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks.

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Excerpted from "The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks" by Jeanne Theoharis. Copyright 2013. Excerpted with permission by Beacon Press.

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