The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks (56 page)

3
. Interview with Parks, Rosa Parks File, Box 2, File 7, GMP.

4
. Parks,
Quiet Strength
, 27. See also VP.

5
. Gilbert Jonas,
Freedom’s Sword: The NAACP and the Struggle Against Racism in America
(New York: Routledge, 2004), 102.

6
. Letter and related materials, Box III: A-273, Folder 3, NAACP.

7
. Branch,
Parting the Waters
, 186.

8
. Correspondence between Peck and Wilkins, Box III: A-273, Folder 6, NAACP.

9
. Document II-C-2, RPA. In March 1956, Durr writes to a friend that Parks had gotten a job with the MIA only to turn around a month later and say that Parks had “no job now at all.” Durr to Foreman, March 15 and April 19, 1956, Folder 127, VDP.

10
. Robinson,
Montgomery Bus Boycott
, 65–66. Robinson describes Parks positively: “Quiet, unassuming, and pleasant in manner and appearance, dignified and reserved; of high morals and a strong character.”

11
. Durr to Horton, February 18, 1956, Box 11, Folder 1, HP.

12
. Patricia Sullivan, ed.,
Freedom Writer
:
Virginia Foster Durr, Letters from the Civil Rights Years
(New York: Routledge, 2003), 107.

13
. Horton to Durr, February 20, 1956, Box 11, Folder 1, HP.

14
. Horton to Parks, February 20, 1956, Box 22, Folder 22, HP.

15
. As quoted in Burns,
Daybreak of Freedom
, 155.

16
. Parks to Horton, February 25, 1956, Box 22, Folder 22, HP.

17
. Durr wrote a friend in March that Parks “has gotten enough money for herself to relieve her own personal difficulties and she thinks that the women should now turn their efforts towards raising money for the Protest.” Sullivan,
Freedom Writer
, 110.

18
. Darlene Clark Hine,
Hine Sight: Black Women and the Reconstruction of American History
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), 41.

19
. Telegram, Box 11, Folder 1, HP. Thousands packed Abernathy’s church on February 23 for an evening prayer meeting after the leaders surrendered to the police. Many ministers, including King, spoke; Parks did not.

20
. Memo from King to Abernathy, February 26, 1957,
The Papers of Martin Luther King Jr., Volume IV: Symbol of the Movement, January 1957-December 1958
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 144.

21
. Thomas Jackson,
From Civil Rights
to Human Rights: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Struggle for Economic Justice
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007), 65.

22
. As quoted in Burns,
Daybreak of Freedom
, 275; David Garrow, ed.,
The Walking City: The Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955-1956
(Brooklyn, NY: Carlson Publishing, 1989), 524–25.

23
. Virginia Durr, oral history (with Clifford Durr), VDP, 273.

24
. As quoted in Burns,
Daybreak of Freedom
, 274–75.

25
. Garrow,
The
Walking City
, 496, 550.

26
. Burns’s
Daybreak of Freedom
and Garrow’s
Bearing the Cross
detail the controversy.

27
. Rosa Parks, interview, June 19, 1981,
You Got to Move
research files, Folder 1, Box 11, LMP.

28
. Nikki Giovanni, author phone interview, March 16, 2010; Gwen Patton, author phone interview, April 19, 2012.

29
. Nikki Giovanni, author interview.

30
. “Rosa Parks: Mother of the Civil Rights Movement 1913–2005,”
Jet
, November 14, 2005.

31
. Robert and Jean Graetz, author interview, July 21, 2010.

32
. Nikki Giovanni, “Nikki-Rosa,”
Black Feeling, Black Talk/Black Judgement
(New York: William Morrow, 1970).

33
. Douglas Brinkley, conversation with the author, October 2010.

34
. Rosa Parks with Gregory J. Reed,
Quiet Strength
:
The Faith, the Hope, and the Heart of a Woman Who Changed a Nation
(Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1994), 17.

35
. L. C. Fortenberry, “Avalon-Carver Hosts Rosa Parks,”
Los Angeles Sentinel
, August 17, 1978.

36
. Herbert Kohl,
She Would Not Be Moved: How We Tell the Story of Rosa Parks
(New York: New Press, 2005), 120.

37
. Virginia Durr, interview by Stanley Smith, 1968, CRDP, 64–65.

38
. Parks did get a letter in May 1957 providing information she had requested on Fountain House, a community-sponsored organization working to rehabilitate former psychiatric patients. Irvin Rutman to Parks, May 20, 1957, Folder 1–5, RPP.

39
. Brinkley, conversation with author.

40
. George R. Metcalf,
Black Profiles
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1970), 257.

41
. Rosa Parks, interview conducted by Blackside, Inc., on November 14, 1985, for
Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years (1954–1965)
, available at Washington University Digital Library,
http://digital.wustl.edu/eyesontheprize/
.

42
. Skwira, “The Rosa Parks Story,” 13.

43
. Interview transcripts, Box 40, Folder 2, JHC.

44
. Mary Stanton,
Journey Toward Justice: Juliette Hampton Morgan and the Montgomery Bus Boycott
(Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2006).

45
. Nicholas Chriss, “The Cat that Put Jim Crow off the Bus,”
Los Angeles Times
, December 1, 1975.

46
. Interview with Juliette Morgan, Box 3, Folder 15, VP.

47
. Robinson,
Montgomery Bus Boycott
, 103.

48
. Braden to Durr, April 19, 1959, Box 2, Folder 3, VDP.

49
. Taylor Branch,
Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–63
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988), 144.

50
. Durr to Foreman, February 11, 1957, File 128, Box 2, VDP.

51
. Nikki Giovanni, “Harvest,”
Those Who Ride the Night Winds
(New York: William Morrow, 1983).

52
. Rosa Parks,
Rosa Parks: My Story
(New York: Dial Books, 1992), 182.

53
. Robinson,
Montgomery Bus Boycott
, 110.

54
. “Report by Rosa Parks,” Box 14, Folder 4, MHP.

55
. Ibid.

56
. Parks to Horton, April 27, 1956, Box 22, Folder 22, HP.

57
. Ibid; Parks,
My Story
, 123.

58
. “Local NAACP Rolls Up Big Membership,”
Los Angeles Sentinel
, April 12, 1956.

59
. Parks (of the MIA) to Ernest Thompson, June 15, 1956, Box 1C, Ernest Thompson Papers, National Negro Labor Council File, Special Collections and University Archives, Rutgers University Libraries.

60
. “Key Bus Boycotter Sparks Rally,”
Los Angeles Sentinel
, April 5, 1956.

61
. Durr to Mitford, April 16, 1956 Box 201, Folder 2, JMC.

62
. Ibid.

63
. Interview transcripts, Box 40, Folder 2, JHC.

64
. Ibid.

65
. Document I-A-2, RPA.

66
. Barbara Ransby,
Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 165–67.

67
. “16,000 Rally in New York,”
Pittsburgh Courier
, June 2, 1956.

68
. Raymond Arsenault,
Freedom Riders
:
1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 75.

69
. Burns,
Daybreak of Freedom
, 46; David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito,
Black Maverick: T. R. M. Howard’s Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power
(Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 167–68.

70
. Document 1-A-4, RPA.

71
. “Mrs. Rosa Parks Given Plaque; NAACP, $1000,”
New York
Amsterdam News
, May 19, 1956.

72
. Parks to Horton, April 27, 1956, Box 22, Folder 22, HP.

73
. Myles Horton,
The Long Haul: An Autobiography
(New York: Teachers College Press, 1997), 189.

74
. Ibid., 190.

75
. Ibid.

76
. Eleanor Roosevelt, “We Can’t Integrate Schools until We Integrate Housing,” Box 22, Folder 22, HP.

77
. Durr to Foreman, May 29, 1956, Box 2, Folder 126, VDP.

78
. Douglas Brinkley,
Rosa Parks: A Life
(New York: Penguin, 2000), 163.

79
. Parks,
My Story
, 174.

80
. Parks interview transcripts, Box 40, Folder 2, JHC.

81
. Rhea McCauley, author interview, May 14, 2012.

82
. Parks,
My Story
, 175.

83
. “$10,000 Raised at Final NAACP Meet,”
Philadelphia Tribune
, July 10, 1956.

84
. Durr writes Mitford that the black community failed Parks “mainly [because] she was so proud that she would never admit her need to anyone.” Durr to Mitford, undated, Box 201, Folder 2, JMC.

85
. Durr to Mitford, July 30, 1956, Box 201, Folder 2, JMC.

86
. “Race Urged to Keep Faith In Its Fight,”
Chicago Defender
, June 9, 1956.

87
. Material on September 23, 1956, program found in the Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr. Collection, Civil Rights History Project: Survey of Collections and Repositories, Library of Congress.

88
. Robert Graetz,
A White Preacher’s Memoir: The Montgomery Bus Boycott
(Montgomery: Black Belt Press, 1998), 101.

89
. Rosa Parks, J. E. Pierce, and Robert Graetz, workshop discussion, August 21, 1956, tape, Integration Workshop/Highlander Series, UC 515A/173, HP.

90
. Graetz,
White Preacher’s Memoir
, 104.

91
. Ibid.

92
. Branch,
Parting the Water
s, 200.

93
. Graetz,
White Preacher’s Memoir
, 102.

94
. Garrow,
The
Walking City
, 35.

95
. Letters between Parks and Current, itineraries, and notices of speaking engagements, Box III: A-124, Folder 8, NAACP.

96
. Ibid.

97
. Ibid.

98
. Durr to Horton, November 15, 1956, Box 11, Folder 1, HP.

99
. Robinson,
Montgomery Bus Boycott
, 164–65.

100
. Brinkley,
Rosa Parks
, 170.

101
. Peter Applebome, “The Man Who Sat Behind Rosa,”
New York Times
, December 8, 2005.

102
. Brinkley,
Rosa Parks
, 171.

103
. Ibid., 170.

104
. Al Martinez, “L.A. Will Honor Rosa Parks: ‘Mother of Civil Rights’ a Reluctant Celebrity,”
Los Angeles Times
, September 13, 1980.

105
. Gary Younge, “White History 101,”
Nation
, March 5, 2007.

106
. Robert and Jean Graetz, author interview.

107
. Donnie Williams with Wayne Greenshaw,
The Thunder of Angels: The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the People Who Broke the Back of Jim Crow
(Chicago: Lawrence Hill, 2006), 255.

108
. Troy Thomas Jackson, “Born in Montgomery: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Struggle for Civil Rights Montgomery,” PhD diss., University of Kentucky, 2006, 74.

109
. Document II-C-11, RPA.

110
. Durr to Horton, November 5, 1956, Box 11, Folder 1, HP.

111
. Nixon’s plan vacillated between building an independent black group to influence both the Democratic and Republican parties and building a group tied to the Democratic Party. Nixon decided to use his ties to the Democratic Party through Mrs. Roosevelt to make it a black Democratic Party organization.

112
. Sullivan,
Freedom Writer
, 138.

113
. Burns,
Daybreak of Freedom
, 298–99.

114
. Durr to Foreman, December 7, 1956, Box 2, Folder 127, VDP.

115
. Durr to Foreman, December 17, 1956, Box 2, Folder 127, VDP.

116
. Brinkley,
Rosa Parks
, 168–69.

117
. Septima Clark, interview by Jacquelyn Hall, January 25, 1976, interview G-0016, SOHP.

118
. Durr to Foreman, Tuesday (n.d.) 1956, Box 2, Folder 127, VDP.

119
. Durr to Foreman, Wednesday, February 1957, Box 2, Folder 128, VDP.

120
. Xmas letter from Durr to Mitford, Box 201, Folder 2, JMC.

121
. Virginia Durr oral history, SC, 273.

122
. As cited in Lynne Olson,
Freedom’s Daughters: The Unsung Heroines of the Civil Rights Movement from 1830 to 1970
(New York: Scribner, 2002), 129.

123
. Durr to Foreman, Wednesday, February 1957, Box 2, Folder 128, VDP.

124
. MO 100-654, FBI File, Folder 9, Box 1, VDP.

125
. Trezzvant W. Anderson, “How Has the Dramatic Bus Boycott Affected Montgomery Negroes,” second article in series,
Pittsburgh Courier
, November 16, 1957.

126
. David Garrow,
Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
(New York: William Morrow, 1986), 88.

127
. Diane McWhorter, “Rosa Parks: The Story Behind Her Sitting Down,”
Slate
, October 25, 2005.

128
. Jackson,
From Civil Rights to Human Rights
, 65.

129
. Robert and Jean Graetz, author interview.