The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks

In the first sweeping history of Parks’s life, Theoharis shows us...[that] Parks not only sat down on the bus; she stood on the right side of justice for her entire life. —Julian Bond, chairman emeritus, NAACP

The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks will undoubtedly be hailed as one of the most important scholarly contributions to civil rights history ever written. … I can’t wait to assign this book in every class I teach. —Melissa Harris-Perry, host, MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry

Theoharis brings all of her talents as a political scientist and historian of the civil rights movement to bear on this illuminating biography of the great Rosa Parks. —Henry Louis Gates Jr.

The Rosa Parks in this book is as much Malcolm X as she is Martin Luther King Jr. —Charles Blow, The New York Times

Richly informative, calmly passionate and much needed. —Nell Irvin Painter, The New York Times Book Rreview

Charisma is not a word often used to describe Rosa Parks yet we have to recognize her star. The Rosa Parks challenge to the political system was deep and lasting even while she never raised her voice. The first female Speaker of the House of Representatives once said, 'You can get a lot done if you don’t need to take credit for it.' She took a page from the book of Parks. Theoharis’ scholarship brings forth a woman whom many followed without ever realizing they were. She was courageous and strong. She also had a wonderful sense of humor. And an awesome sense of responsibility. This is a much needed book on the woman who is, arguably, the most important person in the last half of the twentieth century. Just as the Lincoln Memorial needs a statue of Frederick Douglass gently bending over with a pen in his hand for Lincoln to sign the Emancipation Proclamation, the statue of Martin Luther King, Jr. needs a statue of Rosa Parks just one or two steps ahead mouthing the words: 'Come on, Dr. King. We’ve got work to do.' —Nikki Giovanni, Poet