The Rosa Parks Story
Encyclopedia
The Rosa Parks Story is a 2002
American
television movie
written by Paris Qualles
and directed by Julie Dash
. Angela Basset portrays Rosa Parks. It was broadcast by CBS
on February 24, 2002.
heroine Rosa Parks
, whose refusal to obey a Montgomery, Alabama
segregation
law prompts the first major Civil Rights
demonstration in the country. As a child, Rosa is educated in a private school run by the Religious Society of Friends
, where she is encouraged to overcome the limitations of a segregation based environment with other African Americans in her home state of Alabama
. In her late teens she marries barber Raymond Parks, an advocate of equal rights for all. She eventually joins the local branch of the NAACP
, although her husband believes that the organization is ineffective in its ongoing battle against legalized racism
. On December 1, 1955, after working all day, the department store seamstress takes a seat in the designated "colored" section of a Montgomery city bus. When the "white" section at the front fills up, the white driver orders Parks to relinquish her seat. She refuses and is arrested and jailed. Her action results in a bus boycott and has a major impact on local religious leader Martin Luther King, Jr.
Eventually a ruling by the Supreme Court declares bus segregation unconstitutional.
In the next scene, we hear the teacher asks the girls to pass their tests forward and subsequently, Rowena, one of the girls in the class, tears up her test paper. The teacher, Miss Barton asks her, “did you not do well on the test?” Rowena replies, “I never do well, I’m too stupid.” She does understand why they were bothering with all these academics when they were all going to end up doing labor works. Miss Barton asked, “does anybody want to answer Rowena’s Question?” Young Rosa raises her hand and replied, “We bother so we can be equal to everybody else.” To which Rowena disputed with, “We are not equal to everybody else, we are not equal to white folks!” “I was raised to believe if I put my mind to it I can do whatever I want in this world. I was taught no one is better than me. No man. No woman. Black or White.” They can take anything from you but not your dignity.
Then it cuts to 1931 where we see Rosa grows to be a young woman. She is seen riding on top of a bus with two of cousins. They got off at a Barbershop where Rosa meets her future husband, Raymond Parks. Then subsequently we see a romantic scene where Rosa runs out into the rain and follows by Raymond where they stopped in a shelter and Raymond introduced himself to Rosa which caused Rosa to run away from him due to shyness. In the next scene, Raymond is seen driving to Rosa’s house many times and bring her flowers each time in hopes of get to see her and talk to her. Each time, Rosa would avoid him and not talk to him until finally Rosa’s mother lets him in. Then the couple goes on a date and they tell each other about their life stories. Rosa talks about how her grandfather, who was a slave for half of his life, has taught her how to fish when she was just a little girl. Then Raymond mentions that he does not have a relationship with his father. After their date, on their way home, they get pulled over by a police car where the policeman questions, “Is this your car?” “Yes.” “You wouldn’t be lying to me now, would you boy?” asks the police. Just when the police reaches in and try to grab the license and registration, the radio overhead calls all the police so he has to let them go.
Following is the conversation between Rosa and Raymond after the policemen left:
Rosa: You did the right thing Parks.
Raymond: I didn’t do anything.
Rosa: Sometimes that’s the right thing.
Raymond: Sometimes it ain’t.
Rosa: I know that, too.
In the next scene, we see two white women talking about something that is written on the newspaper. The paper reads, “Two Negro Men Found Dead - Believed to have been working with ‘Scottsboro Boys’ legal defense fund.” One of the woman believes that they should be lynched. Then we see a bunch of images about the protest and they hanged a banner that says, “A Man Was Lynched Today.” Then we see the two water fountains that are side-by-side that have “Whites only” and “Colored” signs on them. Rosa looks at the fountains when an old man takes his young boy to have a drink at the “Whites Only” fountain. It triggers Rosa’s childhood memory where she and her brother changed the signs on the fountains to try and see if the water tastes better from the “Whites only” fountain. They discovered that they taste the same. Then they seen a white man with a dog come over to the water fountains. The white man drinks out of the “Whites only” fountain first and then he feed his dog the water from the “Colored” fountain. The children are appalled by what just happened and we see Rosa runs off.
Rosa gets home and she is crying about Raymond’s safety because he has been missing. Then she bursts into tears when she sees Raymond on the table with her mother. She asks him where his car was and he says that he sold it because he does not need a car if he has her.
We then see them get married in the next scene.
Then in 1942, we see it is raining and Rosa is standing on the street waiting to get on a bus. When the bus gets there, Rosa gets on the bus and sits down. People around her starts murmuring. The Bus driver looks at her through his back-view mirror and yells, “Hey! What do you think you are doing!?” And then he comes to her face, “I said, what do you think you are doing?” ”I’m going to Cleveland Avenue.” The bus driver, “If you are to get on this bus, you are to get off, come back on through the back.” “Get off of what? I’m already on, besides it’s raining.” “I don’t care if the sky is falling, you are to get off my bus and come back on ‘round the back! Do you hear me?!” “Do not put your hands on me!” “Let’s go, COME ON!!!” As she gets off the bus, her umbrella gets caught in the door and the bus driver just drives off with it and does not release it until couple feet later. Rosa is then seen walking home in the rain, crying. Rosa exclaims, “Last time I checked, the color of the dime that we use to pay for the bus fare is the same color as the ones white folks use to pay for the bus fare. We are paid to be humiliated and it does not make sense!”
She meets up with her old friend from her childhood who now works for NAACP to see if she can do something with them. They made her a secretary and she also volunteers to teach a group of children. Then she goes and takes the test to register to vote and she is turned down twice before she finally gets her voters card.
In 1955, Rosa hears her boss, Mr. Nixon, discusses that a 15 year old girl refuses to give up her seat on the bus to a white man. Mr. Nixon then tells Rosa that she should go home or her husband would be complaining to him and that a woman’s place is at home and not in the office. Rosa then tells him that if she was not there then no one would be doing his clerical works.
Rosa then goes to visit a boy named Elijah in the jail who is accused of raping a white girl. He tells her that he did not do it and he has no hope of getting out of it. Rosa is then seen on her front porch crying about Elijah’s situation.
She takes a group of children to a local library to check out books. The librarian explains to them that they cannot check out books here because it is for white folks only and they should go to one for colored folks. Colored folks also cannot try on shoes at stores.
In the next scene, Rosa is seen going on a bus ride home. A white man gets on the bus and the seats are full. The bus driver asks the front row of the colored section to give up their seats and Rosa just happened to be sitting there. Rosa refuses to give up her seats then the driver has her arrested. She spends a night at the jail and the next day NAACP organizes a meeting to see how they are going to approach this injustice. They decided that they are going to boycott on riding the buses to protest.
Rosa is fired from her job because the store manager is not happy with the boycott. Their house is also vandalized and her husband is afraid of the situation and is angry at her. When he is on the street, this old black man helps him realized that what Rosa did on that bus was the right thing to do. They need to be treated like human and Rosa has reminded all of them that.
At the end of the movie, it was seen that the Supreme Court has ruled the segregation of the buses in the state and city of Alabama, unconstitutional.
for her performance, and the film was named Best Television Movie. Black Reel Awards
went to Bassett as Best Actress, Cicely Tyson as Best Supporting Actress, Paris Qualles for his teleplay, and the film as Best Network/Cable Film.
2002 in television
The year 2002 in television involved some significant events.Below is a list of television-related events in 2002.For the American TV schedule, see: 2002–03 United States network television schedule.-Events:-Debuts:-1940s:...
American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
television movie
Television movie
A television film is a feature film that is a television program produced for and originally distributed by a television network, in contrast to...
written by Paris Qualles
Paris Qualles
Paris Qualles is an American screenwriter and television producer.Qualles was born in Harlem in New York City and raised in Long Branch, New Jersey. He attended Rutgers College where he majored in English literature and minored in Photography. He then went to UCLA for graduate school...
and directed by Julie Dash
Julie Dash
Julie Dash is a United States filmmaker. She directed Daughters of the Dust, which in 1991 became the first full-length film with general theatrical release in the United States by an African American woman...
. Angela Basset portrays Rosa Parks. It was broadcast by CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
on February 24, 2002.
Plot
It tells the story of civil rightsCivil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
heroine Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks
Rosa Louise McCauley Parks was an African-American civil rights activist, whom the U.S. Congress called "the first lady of civil rights", and "the mother of the freedom movement"....
, whose refusal to obey a Montgomery, Alabama
Montgomery, Alabama
Montgomery is the capital of the U.S. state of Alabama, and is the county seat of Montgomery County. It is located on the Alabama River southeast of the center of the state, in the Gulf Coastal Plain. As of the 2010 census, Montgomery had a population of 205,764 making it the second-largest city...
segregation
Racial segregation
Racial segregation is the separation of humans into racial groups in daily life. It may apply to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a public toilet, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home...
law prompts the first major Civil Rights
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
demonstration in the country. As a child, Rosa is educated in a private school run by the Religious Society of Friends
Religious Society of Friends
The Religious Society of Friends, or Friends Church, is a Christian movement which stresses the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. Members are known as Friends, or popularly as Quakers. It is made of independent organisations, which have split from one another due to doctrinal differences...
, where she is encouraged to overcome the limitations of a segregation based environment with other African Americans in her home state of Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
. In her late teens she marries barber Raymond Parks, an advocate of equal rights for all. She eventually joins the local branch of the NAACP
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, usually abbreviated as NAACP, is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909. Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to...
, although her husband believes that the organization is ineffective in its ongoing battle against legalized racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
. On December 1, 1955, after working all day, the department store seamstress takes a seat in the designated "colored" section of a Montgomery city bus. When the "white" section at the front fills up, the white driver orders Parks to relinquish her seat. She refuses and is arrested and jailed. Her action results in a bus boycott and has a major impact on local religious leader Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for being an iconic figure in the advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world, using nonviolent methods following the...
Eventually a ruling by the Supreme Court declares bus segregation unconstitutional.
Summary
The movie begins with Rosa walking out to the angry mob who questions her with statements like, “what were you thinking when you refuse to get off the seat? Was that a setup?” Then she gets on the bus where the driver stared at her. Then it cuts to a flashback from Rosa’s childhood in 1924 where she attends, what it appears to be, her first day of school at Montgomery Industrial School for Girls. 9,a er den bedsteIn the next scene, we hear the teacher asks the girls to pass their tests forward and subsequently, Rowena, one of the girls in the class, tears up her test paper. The teacher, Miss Barton asks her, “did you not do well on the test?” Rowena replies, “I never do well, I’m too stupid.” She does understand why they were bothering with all these academics when they were all going to end up doing labor works. Miss Barton asked, “does anybody want to answer Rowena’s Question?” Young Rosa raises her hand and replied, “We bother so we can be equal to everybody else.” To which Rowena disputed with, “We are not equal to everybody else, we are not equal to white folks!” “I was raised to believe if I put my mind to it I can do whatever I want in this world. I was taught no one is better than me. No man. No woman. Black or White.” They can take anything from you but not your dignity.
Then it cuts to 1931 where we see Rosa grows to be a young woman. She is seen riding on top of a bus with two of cousins. They got off at a Barbershop where Rosa meets her future husband, Raymond Parks. Then subsequently we see a romantic scene where Rosa runs out into the rain and follows by Raymond where they stopped in a shelter and Raymond introduced himself to Rosa which caused Rosa to run away from him due to shyness. In the next scene, Raymond is seen driving to Rosa’s house many times and bring her flowers each time in hopes of get to see her and talk to her. Each time, Rosa would avoid him and not talk to him until finally Rosa’s mother lets him in. Then the couple goes on a date and they tell each other about their life stories. Rosa talks about how her grandfather, who was a slave for half of his life, has taught her how to fish when she was just a little girl. Then Raymond mentions that he does not have a relationship with his father. After their date, on their way home, they get pulled over by a police car where the policeman questions, “Is this your car?” “Yes.” “You wouldn’t be lying to me now, would you boy?” asks the police. Just when the police reaches in and try to grab the license and registration, the radio overhead calls all the police so he has to let them go.
Following is the conversation between Rosa and Raymond after the policemen left:
Rosa: You did the right thing Parks.
Raymond: I didn’t do anything.
Rosa: Sometimes that’s the right thing.
Raymond: Sometimes it ain’t.
Rosa: I know that, too.
In the next scene, we see two white women talking about something that is written on the newspaper. The paper reads, “Two Negro Men Found Dead - Believed to have been working with ‘Scottsboro Boys’ legal defense fund.” One of the woman believes that they should be lynched. Then we see a bunch of images about the protest and they hanged a banner that says, “A Man Was Lynched Today.” Then we see the two water fountains that are side-by-side that have “Whites only” and “Colored” signs on them. Rosa looks at the fountains when an old man takes his young boy to have a drink at the “Whites Only” fountain. It triggers Rosa’s childhood memory where she and her brother changed the signs on the fountains to try and see if the water tastes better from the “Whites only” fountain. They discovered that they taste the same. Then they seen a white man with a dog come over to the water fountains. The white man drinks out of the “Whites only” fountain first and then he feed his dog the water from the “Colored” fountain. The children are appalled by what just happened and we see Rosa runs off.
Rosa gets home and she is crying about Raymond’s safety because he has been missing. Then she bursts into tears when she sees Raymond on the table with her mother. She asks him where his car was and he says that he sold it because he does not need a car if he has her.
We then see them get married in the next scene.
Then in 1942, we see it is raining and Rosa is standing on the street waiting to get on a bus. When the bus gets there, Rosa gets on the bus and sits down. People around her starts murmuring. The Bus driver looks at her through his back-view mirror and yells, “Hey! What do you think you are doing!?” And then he comes to her face, “I said, what do you think you are doing?” ”I’m going to Cleveland Avenue.” The bus driver, “If you are to get on this bus, you are to get off, come back on through the back.” “Get off of what? I’m already on, besides it’s raining.” “I don’t care if the sky is falling, you are to get off my bus and come back on ‘round the back! Do you hear me?!” “Do not put your hands on me!” “Let’s go, COME ON!!!” As she gets off the bus, her umbrella gets caught in the door and the bus driver just drives off with it and does not release it until couple feet later. Rosa is then seen walking home in the rain, crying. Rosa exclaims, “Last time I checked, the color of the dime that we use to pay for the bus fare is the same color as the ones white folks use to pay for the bus fare. We are paid to be humiliated and it does not make sense!”
She meets up with her old friend from her childhood who now works for NAACP to see if she can do something with them. They made her a secretary and she also volunteers to teach a group of children. Then she goes and takes the test to register to vote and she is turned down twice before she finally gets her voters card.
In 1955, Rosa hears her boss, Mr. Nixon, discusses that a 15 year old girl refuses to give up her seat on the bus to a white man. Mr. Nixon then tells Rosa that she should go home or her husband would be complaining to him and that a woman’s place is at home and not in the office. Rosa then tells him that if she was not there then no one would be doing his clerical works.
Rosa then goes to visit a boy named Elijah in the jail who is accused of raping a white girl. He tells her that he did not do it and he has no hope of getting out of it. Rosa is then seen on her front porch crying about Elijah’s situation.
She takes a group of children to a local library to check out books. The librarian explains to them that they cannot check out books here because it is for white folks only and they should go to one for colored folks. Colored folks also cannot try on shoes at stores.
In the next scene, Rosa is seen going on a bus ride home. A white man gets on the bus and the seats are full. The bus driver asks the front row of the colored section to give up their seats and Rosa just happened to be sitting there. Rosa refuses to give up her seats then the driver has her arrested. She spends a night at the jail and the next day NAACP organizes a meeting to see how they are going to approach this injustice. They decided that they are going to boycott on riding the buses to protest.
Rosa is fired from her job because the store manager is not happy with the boycott. Their house is also vandalized and her husband is afraid of the situation and is angry at her. When he is on the street, this old black man helps him realized that what Rosa did on that bus was the right thing to do. They need to be treated like human and Rosa has reminded all of them that.
At the end of the movie, it was seen that the Supreme Court has ruled the segregation of the buses in the state and city of Alabama, unconstitutional.
Awards
Angela Bassett won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic SpecialNAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special
The NAACP Image Award winners for Outstanding Actress in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special:*Most Wins: Cicely Tyson, Halle Berry, Angela Bassett, Alfre Woodard- 2 wins*Most Nominations:-Stats:...
for her performance, and the film was named Best Television Movie. Black Reel Awards
Black Reel Awards of 2003
Here are the nominees and winners of the 2003 Black Reel Awards....
went to Bassett as Best Actress, Cicely Tyson as Best Supporting Actress, Paris Qualles for his teleplay, and the film as Best Network/Cable Film.