The Rosa Parks Story is a
2002 American television movie written by
Paris Qualles and directed by
Julie Dash.
Angela Basset portrays Rosa Parks. It was broadcast by
CBS on February 24, 2002.
Plot
It tells the story of
civil rights heroine
Rosa Parks, whose refusal to obey a
Montgomery, Alabama segregation law prompts the first major
Civil Rights demonstration in the country. As a child, Rosa is educated in a private school run by the
Religious Society of Friends, where she is encouraged to overcome the limitations of a segregation based environment with other
African Americans in her home state of
Alabama. In her late teens she marries barber Raymond Parks, an advocate of equal rights for all. She eventually joins the local branch of the
NAACP, although her husband believes that the organization is ineffective in its ongoing battle against legalized
racism. On December 1, 1955, after working all day, the department store seamstress takes a seat in the designated "colored" section of a Montgomery city bus. When the "white" section at the front fills up, the white driver orders Parks to relinquish her seat. She refuses and is arrested and jailed. Her action results in a bus boycott and has a major impact on local religious leader
Martin Luther King, Jr. Eventually a ruling by the Supreme Court declares bus segregation unconstitutional.
Summary
The movie begins with Rosa walking out to the angry mob who questions her with statements like, “what were...
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