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Exhibition Rosa Parks: In Her Own Words

Events & Resources

Virtual Student Workshops

Virtual workshops are available by request and are led by a Library facilitator. These programs take place online, last approximately 45 minutes, and include interactive elements and pre-and post-program material.

  • Rosa Parks: Freedom Fighter (grades 5-8)
    Through discussion, questioning strategies, storytelling and other activities, participants learn about the many ways civil rights activist Rosa Parks fought to bring about justice and equality for many Americans. The program draws on the personal papers of Rosa Parks and other multimedia items held at the Library of Congress.

Classroom Resources

Online Resources including Digitized Collections

Webcasts

  • Rosa Parks: The History and the Heart
    A panel conversation featuring Parks biographers Douglas Brinkley ("Rosa Parks: A Life") and Jeanne Theoharis ("The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks"), moderated by NPR host Michel Martin.
  • Rosa Parks: Beyond the Bus
    Elaine Steele, Ella McCall Haygan, and Anita Peek give first-hand accounts of Mrs. Parks' life and legacy after her historical arrest.
  • Rosa Parks Collection: Telling Her Story at the Library of Congress
    Highlights of the collection of Rosa Parks, a seminal figure of the Civil Rights Movement, was placed on loan with the Library in 2014 and became a permanent gift in 2016 through the generosity of the Howard G. Buffett Foundation. This video contains highlights from the collection and a look behind the scenes at how the Library's team of experts in cataloging, preservation, digitization, exhibition and teacher training are making the legacy of Rosa Parks available to the world.
  • Rosa Parks: In Her Own Words
    An introduction to Rosa Parks developed for the exhibition.

Online Exhibitions

  • African-American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship
    This exhibition showcases the incomparable African American collections of the Library of Congress. Rosa Parks's role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott is mentioned in the Civil Rights section.
  • The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for Freedom
    This exhibition, which commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, explores the events that shaped the civil rights movement, as well as the far-reaching impact the act had on a changing society.
  • Voices of Civil Rights
    This exhibition documents events during the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. This exhibition draws from the thousands of personal stories, oral histories, and photographs collected by the “Voices of Civil Rights” project.
  • “With an Even Hand”: Brown v. Board at Fifty
    This exhibition includes a photograph of Rosa Parks being fingerprinted as well images of her arrest record.

Publications

In association with the University of Georgia Press, the Library of Congress will publish Rosa Parks: In Her Own Words, as a companion to the exhibition. Written by Susan Reyburn with a foreword by Carla D. Hayden, Librarian of Congress, the publication will be available for sale in the Library’s gift shop beginning in December and online in January 2020.

Read More About It

  • Brinkley, Douglas. Rosa Parks. New York: Viking/Penguin, 2003.
  • Collier-Thomas, Bettye and V.P. Franklin, eds. Sisters in the Struggle: African American Women in the Civil Rights-Black Power Movement. New York: New York University Press, 2001.
  • Keys, Sheila McCauley. Our Auntie Rosa: The Family of Rosa Parks Remembers Her Life and Lessons. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA), 2015.
  • McGuire, Danielle. At the Dark End of the Street. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010.
  • Osborne, Linda Barrett. Women of the Civil Rights Movement. San Francisco: Pomegranate; Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 2006.
  • Parks, Rosa, with Gregory J. Reed. Quiet Strength: The Faith, the Hope, and the Heart of a Woman Who Changed a Nation. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing, 1994.
  • Theoharis, Jeanne. The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks. Boston: Beacon Press, 2013.

For Young Readers

  • Bjornlund, Lydia. Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Detroit: Lucent Books, 2008.
  • Fine, Edith Hope. Rosa Parks: Meet a Civil Rights Hero. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow, 2004.
  • Greenfield, Eloise. Rosa Parks. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1995.
  • Herman, Gail. Who Was Coretta Scott King? New York, New York: Penguin Workshop, an imprint of Penguin Random House, 2017.
  • Nelson, Maria. Coretta Scott King. 1st ed. New York: Gareth Stevens Pub., 2012.
  • Parks, Rosa, with Jim Haskins. My Story. New York: Dial Books, 1992.
  • Parks, Rosa with Jim Haskins. I am Rosa Parks. New York: Dial Books for Young Readers, 1997.