The Rosa Parks Story

In this film made three years before her death at 92, Rosa Parks was given a most accurate portrayal of her life and the times she grew up in. One simple act of disobedience to an unjust and demeaning law sparked the conscience of the caring members of a nation.

I have to confess that I did not know much about Rosa Parks other than that act on Christmas Eve of 1955 when she refused to give up a seat on a bus to a white person because the Jim Crow laws demanded it. In fact I believe that most people think that she was just a department store seamstress which the civil rights movement used as a symbol against injustice.

Rosa Parks, born Rosa Louise McCauley in the area around Montgomery, Alabama was quite politically aware. Part of that came from her marriage to barber Raymond Parks played here by Peter Francis James. It may have looked like an ordinary black barbershop to a lot of people, but in fact it was a meeting place for what was deemed revolutionary activity by the segregationists in control. You could find all kinds of radical literature there, not on public display to be sure, but stuff put out by the NAACP and even the Communist Party. When Raymond had met and was courting Rosa in 1932 he was raising money for the Scottsboro case, the notorious one where several black homeless youths riding in a freight car during the depression, allegedly gang raped some white women who were in similar economic circumstances.

Rosa was the secretary of the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP which was not a paying job. Which was why she was working as a seamstress when her call from destiny occurred on Christmas. The woman had a history of civil rights activism that I was not aware of.

Angela Bassett does a fine job in capturing the hopes and dreams and frustrations of a woman who saw and wanted a lot more from life than what she was restricted to. You'll also see Dexter King play his immortal father Martin Luther King who first came to prominence during the boycott of the Montgomery Bus System that resulted from Rosa's arrest and fine.

It's now 64 years since Rosa Parks made a defiant act against injustice the symbol of the Civil Rights movement. The Rosa Parks Story is an absolute must for any young viewers who want to acquaint themselves with a triumph against an unjust way of life.

I just got through watching this movie, and I must say that I was quite surprised. Angela Bassett was wonderful as MRS Parks, and so was Cicely Tyson, who played her mother. If you don't do anything else for Black History Month, please watch this movie, it's well worth it!

The choir in the movie sounded very good. They should get credit for all the hard work that they put into the soundtrack of the film. They traveled for hours just to make it to the set. they set and waited for long hours, voices drained, and they still managed to sound incredible. they were talked about and criticized, but they overcame all the negative comments and still did their thing. they should at least appear on the credits. they stayed up all night on a school night just to record the soundtrack. that's dedication. the central high school show choir from Tuscaloosa, Alabama should get recognition for their incredible work and their outstanding voices. Mrs. Jocqualine Richardson, the director, does a wonderful job with these young kids.

This morning, a cable channel showed "The Rosa Parks Story" since it fits in so well with Martin Luther King day.

The movie drew me in and kept me in my seat until the very last scene. While most people are aware of Ms. Parks' historical significance, the famous bus scene forms a centerpiece for the movie which is deftly surrounded by events from her childhood, her marriage to Raymond, and a stirring scene with her mother around the time of the turmoil.

It would have been so easy for such a movie to descend into preaching or overly lionize Ms. Parks. Instead, she is portrayed as a woman simply asserting her dignity as a human being. The casting for the movie was extremely strong since Angela Bassett (Rosa), and Cicely Tyson (her mother, Leona) are great actresses and Peter Francis James also does well as Raymond Parks.

Through haunting flashbacks and a scene showing Ms. Parks's struggles to register to vote, the producers succeed in showing an ugly era in America's social history without over-sensationalizing. They also manage to show that many white people in Montgomery extended kindness to her, including a wealthy woman customer at the store where she worked and an attorney who helped out with the court case.

Many scenes are emotionally stirring: you'd better have a box of tissues handy for this one!

This comment is to commemorate the historic event fifty years ago whereby Rosa Parks refused to relinquish her seat on the bus in the devastatingly volatile southern state of Alabama. Her actions accelerated the snail's pace progress of civil rights tremendously!!..It is alarming to realize that not all that long ago, we as a nation were hopelessly mired in an abyss of racial hatred so deep, that Rosa Parks set a nationwide precedent, by simply refusing to acquiesce to the premise of racial inequality!!...It is abhorrent and reprehensible to think!! that Rosa Parks was punished, and subject to criminal repercussions, just because she was told that as an individual, she was inferior, and she did not concur!!...Rosa Parks said NO!! to racial hatred!!!...Rosa Parks said NO!! to baseless presumptions!!! and Rosa Parks became nauseated to the breaking point to say ENOUGH!! when she was denied a right that is ascertained by the constitution, a right that is pronounced by the scripture, and a right that is decreed by God...The right of equality!!!

In the past fifty years , we have made great strides in civil liberties and rights accorded us...However, the single biggest killer wolf in sheep's clothing, and the most deadly form of hatred, is when we say that hatred no longer exists!!! Many atrocities stemming from hatred which have been vitiated in the last fifty years are a form of self congratulatory accomplishment, but by no means, any indication of complete progress..Hatred is an insidious assassin which can strike without notice, if we pretend that racial and social hatred no longer exist, then we are capitulating to a lethal ignorance which will inevitably set us back to the dreadful days of repugnant oppression!! This incident was socially appalling!! I am an individual who detests even a modicum of social inequity, this qualifies me to uphold what I believe in on this issue, and so many other issues pertinent to egalitarianism as well!!... When Rosa Parks refused to give her seat up some fifty years ago, she was not imbued by some lofty idealism, rather, she enforced her rudimentary insight to justifiably object to what she felt was a horrible injustice!! Rosa Parks serves as a shining inspiration to many Americans, and she has instilled in them, the indispensable spirituality, to covet the privilege of freedom, and to cherish the right of equality!!!