The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks

We saw this fascinating documentary at the Traverse CIty Film Festival today. What a revelation. Living in Michigan most of my life I saw Mrs. Parks as someone who performed a brave act in 1955 when she refused to give up her seat and move to the back of the bus as requested by the driver on the segregated municipal bus line of Montgomery, Alabama. She was arrested and that initiated the famous Montgomery Bus Boycott. But to learn that she was a civil rights activist both before that incident and for her whole life thereafter was startling. And to find out that she lived in poverty for many years after moving to Detroit, with male civil rights activists being unwilling to employ her, sheds light on the patriarchal structure of even the black civil rights leaders of that time. This film is an engrossing story of a humble and non-assuming female activist, directed and shot in stylish fashion by directors Johanna Hamilton and Yoruba Richen.