Protesting with Rosa Parks
From Stagecoaches to Driving While Black
Format:Paperback
Publisher:University of Georgia Press
Publishing:1st Aug '25
£28.95
This title is due to be published on 1st August, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
A history of civil rights protests and the activists who fought discrimination
Bollard recounts the experiences of more than ninety-five civil rights leaders and private citizens who protested against segregation on stagecoaches, trains, streetcars, steamboats, buses, planes, cars, and even elevators--people like David Ruggles, John Lewis, Sandra Blank, and Tyre Nichols.
Protesting with Rosa Parksdetails the history of the intersections between Black activism and travel over a span of one hundred and ninety years. John K. Bollard recounts the experiences of more than ninety-five civil rights leaders and private citizens who protested against segregation on stagecoaches, trains, streetcars, steamboats, buses, planes, cars, and even elevators--people like David Ruggles, John Lewis, Sandra Blank, and Tyre Nichols. While recognizing the historical significance of Rosa Parks, this book reveals her refusal to move as part of a long tradition of protest that strives to guarantee everyone the right to ride on our collective journey towards equality.
Protesting with Rosa Parks is deeply informed by the lives, and at times the deaths, of nearly a hundred African Americans as they traveled the country. This book is a model of how biography can bring social history to life across a span of almost two hundred years. Of special note is David Ruggles, in effect the first 'freedom rider,' a significant thinker and strategist whose willingness to put his body on the line repeatedly in the name of freedom was truly revolutionary. When we see someone today protesting inequality, at risk of being vilified, beaten, and arrested, we are witnessing the legacy of David Ruggles and the others in this outstanding book.
-- Steven J. Niven * executive editor, Hutchins Center for African & African American Research, Harvard University *The fight for justice didn’t start or end with one person but by the blood shed by countless individuals. I was a fifteen-year-old girl when I refused to give up my seat, but I knew it was my constitutional right, and I wasn’t breaking any laws except the unwritten Jim Crow law of segregation. This history is about more than a bus seat; it’s about standing up against a racist system that had oppressed colored people for generations. I hope this book reminds us of how far we’ve come and still have to go.
-- Claudette Colvin * American pioneer of the 1950s civil rights movement who was arrested on a Montgomery bus ten months before Rosa Parks *While Rosa Parks has been venerated for her instrumental role in the civil rights movement, John K. Bollard’s Protesting with Rosa Parks shows her courageous actions have deep roots in the Black protest tradition. Having unearthed lesser-known stories of resistance to segregated public conveyances, Bollard’s book demonstrates the centrality of such efforts within broader movements to end slavery, Jim Crow, and racist policing practices. Indeed, this engaging, well-written book provides an original contribution to the history of the Black protest tradition - from the early Republic to our present day.
-- Ousmane Power-Greene * author of Against Wind and Tide: The African American Struggle against the Colonization MovemeISBN: 9781588385529
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
448 pages