Close Modal
Fifty years after she made history by refusing to give up her seat on a bus, Rosa Parks at last gets the major biography she deserves. The eminent historian Douglas Brinkley follows this thoughtful and devout woman from her childhood in Jim Crow Alabama through her early involvement in the NAACP to her epochal moment of courage and her afterlife as a beloved (and resented) icon of the civil rights movement. Well researched and written with sympathy and keen insight, the result is a moving, revelatory portrait of an American heroine and her tumultuous times.
"[A] precise history of the woman and the incident that would crown her the mother of the civil rights movement." —USA Today

"A timely update of the historical record, told as an inspiring and unabashedly dramatic story of an American heroine." —The Seattle Times

Douglas Brinkley is a distinguished professor of history and director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies at the University of New Orleans. His books include The Unfinished Presidency: Jimmy Carter’s Journey Beyond the White House, Rosa Parks: A Life, and Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War. View titles by Douglas G. Brinkley
Prologue

Chapter 1: Up from the Pine

Chapter 2: Coming of Age in Montgomery

Chapter 3: A Stirring Passion for Equality

Chapter 4: Laying a Foundations

Chapter 5: The Preparation

Chapter 6: The Bus Boycott

Chapter 7: Strength through Serenity

Chapter 8: "We Make the Road by Walking It"

Chapter 9: Steadfast and Unmovable

Chapter 10: Detroit Days

Chapter 11: Months of Bloody Sundays

Chapter 12: Onward

Epilogue

Bibliographical Notes

About

Fifty years after she made history by refusing to give up her seat on a bus, Rosa Parks at last gets the major biography she deserves. The eminent historian Douglas Brinkley follows this thoughtful and devout woman from her childhood in Jim Crow Alabama through her early involvement in the NAACP to her epochal moment of courage and her afterlife as a beloved (and resented) icon of the civil rights movement. Well researched and written with sympathy and keen insight, the result is a moving, revelatory portrait of an American heroine and her tumultuous times.

Praise

"[A] precise history of the woman and the incident that would crown her the mother of the civil rights movement." —USA Today

"A timely update of the historical record, told as an inspiring and unabashedly dramatic story of an American heroine." —The Seattle Times

Author

Douglas Brinkley is a distinguished professor of history and director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies at the University of New Orleans. His books include The Unfinished Presidency: Jimmy Carter’s Journey Beyond the White House, Rosa Parks: A Life, and Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War. View titles by Douglas G. Brinkley

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1: Up from the Pine

Chapter 2: Coming of Age in Montgomery

Chapter 3: A Stirring Passion for Equality

Chapter 4: Laying a Foundations

Chapter 5: The Preparation

Chapter 6: The Bus Boycott

Chapter 7: Strength through Serenity

Chapter 8: "We Make the Road by Walking It"

Chapter 9: Steadfast and Unmovable

Chapter 10: Detroit Days

Chapter 11: Months of Bloody Sundays

Chapter 12: Onward

Epilogue

Bibliographical Notes