Mind blown. It was like when I found out who Luke Skywalker’s father was or the Wizard of Oz was. I felt the same way when I read The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks by award-winning historian Jeanne Theoharis. This rigorously and vigorously researched biography invites the reader to follow Parks' story as it really unfolded. In doing so, Theoharis also invites the reader to consider why this more fascinating true story is told far less often than the children's book version which most of us know (a topic she further explores in her latest book A More Beautiful and Terrible History and through a gold mine of teaching resources for educators). February 4 would have been Parks’ 106th birthday. If you believe in what she did and why she did it, it is time you knew who she really was. It might blow your mind and it might make you look at diversity issues--and the people raising those issues--in your organization differently.
Everyone knows the story. Rosa Parks was an elderly black seamstress on her way home from work in 1955, who declined to give up her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama because her feet were tired. This spontaneous action sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the civil rights movement, giving this usually docile woman an accidental place in history.
But that is not what happened. (To begin with, as someone north of 50, I take issue with 42-year-old Parks being described as elderly. Not the point, but just saying.) The truth about Parks is both heart-breaking and heartwarming. The truth about Parks has made me think differently about a number of people around me. With its OMG revelations on almost every page, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks has led me to think about the diversity champions and inclusion initiatives in organizations differently. Here are three of many examples:
1. Young Rosa McCauley was known for her defiance of Jim Crow norms and laws. A childhood friend recalls that “nobody ever bossed Rosa around and got away with it.” In fact, Parks’ grandmother, who had been enslaved herself, openly feared her granddaughter would be lynched before she was twenty years old. She did not look for fights but she also did not avoid them.
2. Parks was repeatedly rejected at the voter registration office but she kept returning until she was registered. At a time when blacks were kept from voting by onerous poll taxes, literacy tests, or needing a white person to vouch for them, Parks kept trying to register to vote. She eventually joined the 3% of eligible blacks in the South who were registered to vote and was active in helping others do the same. She did not accept that norms, rules, or laws were fair, just because they were there.
3. Parks played a leadership role in the NAACP. Parks first attended NAACP meetings in the 1930s and was elected to serve on a three-person executive committee of the NAACP state conference in the 1940s. Her wide-ranging activities included writing letters to Congress in favor of anti-lynching laws and interviewing blacks who had been attacked by whites so that the incidents were recorded, even if disregarded by law enforcement. Her community organizing and activism work was a huge part of her life. She was the person organizing, leading, and showing up at the (dangerous) equivalent of diversity meetings.
By the time of the 1955 bus incident, Parks had a track record as a relentless, long-time fighter of the status quo, which she described as “a life history of being rebellious.” Parks tried to correct our national narrative about what happened on the bus: “I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day ... No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.” In fact, Parks was tireless, not tired.
Knowing this helps us think about what is happening in our organizations and in our society differently. Sometimes, we want to wish away the discord and friction surrounding issues of race or #metoo or any other socially charged issue at the office. We want that person who does not let it go to leave it alone. We describe them as divisive or troublemakers or negative. They are always playing the race or gender or gay card, we might think to ourselves.
Is it possible that person who will not let it go may be more like Parks than the mythical “Rosa Parks” herself? By rolling our eyes or tuning out, might we be passing up the opportunity to support the kind of work that Parks exemplified? In fact, research shows that actions promoting diversity--like challenging a “joke” or promoting a woman or minority employee--carries penalties for the person taking action, if they are from the targeted or underrepresented group. In other words, if a woman advocates for gender equality or if a black person advocates for race equality, they pay a greater price than if a man or white person takes these same actions. The same was true for Parks, who endured great financial and psychological hardship after the bus incident.
The big reveal about Rosa Parks has the power to change how we view the past and the present. I have felt more support, empathy and gratitude for people around me who keep challenging the status quo. Are there folks in your organization who are challenging the status quo, day after day, talking about the diversity initiative and raising uncomfortable issues in meetings? Are there folks in your organization who have a “life history of being rebellious” (if not, why not?)? If so, they may be tireless but I bet they are also tired.
Maybe it is time to look at them differently.
