14: Rosa Parks: Beyond the Bus

Join us for a conversation between Mrs. Parks companion and friend, H.H. Leonards  and historian - writer Noah Griffin as they explore the legacy of Rosa Parks. Sixty-eight years ago on December 1, 1955, Mrs.Rosa Parks rejected a bus driver's order to leave a row of four seats in the "colored" section and move to the back of the bus. Her defiance and subsequent arrest sparked a successful boycott of buses in Montgomery a few days later; a pivotal event in the civil rights movement that ultimately led to the dismantling of Jim Crow segregation. Mrs. Parks became an icon of the movement, celebrated for this single courageous act of civil disobedience.But as H.H.Leonard writes, "There was much more to Mrs. Parks than the seat she refused to reliquish on "that" bus. By profession she was a seamstress. Her stiching was delicate and precise; she made beautiful clothes. But in the bigger picture, she sewed pieces of people's lives together throughout the world and lifted them up with tenacity, hope, and pure love.