Synopses & Reviews
Fifty years after she made history by refusing to give up her seat on a bus, Rosa Parks at last gets the major biography she deserves. The eminent historian Douglas Brinkley follows this thoughtful and devout woman from her childhood in Jim Crow Alabama through her early involvement in the NAACP to her epochal moment of courage and her afterlife as a beloved (and resented) icon of the civil rights movement. Well researched and written with sympathy and keen insight, the result is a moving, revelatory portrait of an American heroine and her tumultuous times.
Review
"[A] precise history of the woman and the incident that would crown her the mother of the civil rights movement."
—USA Today
"A timely update of the historical record, told as an inspiring and unabashedly dramatic story of an American heroine." —The Seattle Times
About the Author
Douglas Brinkley is Distinguished Professor of History and director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies at the University of New Orleans. His books include Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War and The Unfinished Presidency: Jimmy Carter’s Journey Beyond the White House.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1: Up from the Pine
Chapter 2: Coming of Age in Montgomery
Chapter 3: A Stirring Passion for Equality
Chapter 4: Laying a Foundations
Chapter 5: The Preparation
Chapter 6: The Bus Boycott
Chapter 7: Strength through Serenity
Chapter 8: "We Make the Road by Walking It"
Chapter 9: Steadfast and Unmovable
Chapter 10: Detroit Days
Chapter 11: Months of Bloody Sundays
Chapter 12: Onward
Epilogue
Bibliographical Notes