The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks

This necessary documentary film from SO’B Productions demands a reckoning with the historical record of the life of Rosa Parks, and shows the depth, courage, and determination of Black resistance to anti-Black racism and white racial terror. The center of gravity of this reframing is the long arc of Mrs. Rosa Parks’ radical vision, the ethical commitment and integrity of the Civil Rights Movement, and the deep understanding of the long-term demands required for the social transformation of America and the fight for social justice and equality. Challenging the historical confinement to symbolic celebrations of Mrs. Parks, the film shows her as a central architect and activist. Her fight for social justice extends far beyond her refusal to relinquish her seat on a segregated bus in the infamous Montgomery Bus Boycott: from her subsequent engagements in struggles for Black social justice and her work with radical young social activists including the Black Power wing of the movement, to her support for international struggles against the Vietnam War and South African Apartheid. The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks effectively reframes the conventional understanding of the modern Civil Rights movement as led largely by charismatic men and supportive women. Indeed, we call particular attention to the film’s detailed account of the pivotal role of women in the Montgomery Boycott, in the face of white Southern terror. For giving viewers a complex account of this courageous American and her marvelous American story of Black resistance and movement for social and racial justice, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks wins a Peabody.