The Rosa Parks Story

The performance of Angela Bassett and the other actors in the movie was great. They portrayed the parts of the story that most people do not know. It brought out so many emotions, I could hardly control them. Like Rosa, I'd refuse to leave my seat, [or rather my sofa], as well.

This morning, a cable channel showed "The Rosa Parks Story" since it fits in so well with Martin Luther King day.

The movie drew me in and kept me in my seat until the very last scene. While most people are aware of Ms. Parks' historical significance, the famous bus scene forms a centerpiece for the movie which is deftly surrounded by events from her childhood, her marriage to Raymond, and a stirring scene with her mother around the time of the turmoil.

It would have been so easy for such a movie to descend into preaching or overly lionize Ms. Parks. Instead, she is portrayed as a woman simply asserting her dignity as a human being. The casting for the movie was extremely strong since Angela Bassett (Rosa), and Cicely Tyson (her mother, Leona) are great actresses and Peter Francis James also does well as Raymond Parks.

Through haunting flashbacks and a scene showing Ms. Parks's struggles to register to vote, the producers succeed in showing an ugly era in America's social history without over-sensationalizing. They also manage to show that many white people in Montgomery extended kindness to her, including a wealthy woman customer at the store where she worked and an attorney who helped out with the court case.

Many scenes are emotionally stirring: you'd better have a box of tissues handy for this one!

In continuing to review in chronological order the achievements of African-Americans in film and television for Black History Month, we're now at 2002 with The Rosa Parks Story, written by Paris Qualles, directed by Julie Dash, and starring Angela Bassett who also serves as an executive producer. We follow the woman born Rosa McCauley's life story from when she was a child (as played by Charde Manzy) attending an all-colored-(as they were described as then)girls Catholic school with a Caucasian female teacher to her marriage to Raymond Parks (Peter Francis James) to her first confrontation with the mean white bus driver (Sonny Shroyer in a role very much different from deputy 'Dipstick' Enos on "The Dukes of Hazzard") to her arrest from that same driver with police backup. That first scene with Shroyer was really frightening with the way he treats her when she refuses to go to the back entrance to get back on because of the hard rain outside. Another intense scene is one that takes place after the famous incident when Rosa answers the phone that rings for a long time and looks shocked after she puts the receiver to her ear. Everything about Ms. Parks as performed by Bassett rings true here. Also fine is Mr. James as husband Raymond who's charming when he first courts Rosa even when she constantly refuses to see him and then is initially hesitant when he realizes the consequences of his wife's actions. And then there's the great Cicely Tyson, Miss Jane Pittman herself, who delivers perhaps the most inspirational speech as Leona McCauley to her daughter near the end of the movie. That and Dexter Scott King portraying his father Dr. Martin Luther make The Rosa Parks Story a very compelling movie biography. As an added treat, we see President Bill Clinton, in his second-to-last State of the Union address, acknowledging Ms. Parks in the audience and saying she can sit anywhere she wants! With all that said, I highly recommend The Rosa Parks Story to anyone with an interest in American history's darkest days and the good that resulted when someone did something to help put an end to it. And of course to any fan of Ms. Bassett. P.S. Peter Francis James is, like me, a Chicago native.

I didn't plan to write a comment at first, but when I saw one big mistake the director did, I was compelled to write one as soon as I finished watching. I am surprised that no one at that time said anything to the director. It was so obvious.

This scene was about Rosa Parks who had to walk several miles in the rain at night, after the bus driver threw her out of the bus. She walked into her home without the wet umbrella. She was wearing some fancy looking dry coat, and her hat looks dry. Her shoes look shiny with no water drop or mud on them. Her hair looked fine and dry. When she took off her coat, her clothes also looked dry. Most importantly, after she took off her "wet" coat, her husband just hung it on the coat hanger with all the other dry coats. There was no water drops on the floor, either.

The casting director did a good job by picking those few good white actors. I especially like the one who worked at the voter registration office, she really acted well, had that look. I also liked the one who worked at the white only library. However, the director failed to tell us what happened eventually when Rosa parks took a bunch of children to a while only library. We only saw them trying to check out books, but what happened afterward? Were they allowed to check out the books or not? This is a good real life story. If it was done well, it could have made the audiences to cry, but it failed to do so. The first half of the movie was well directed. After she refused to give up her seat on the bus, the story failed to focus the whole movement. It spent most time on her personal life. It should have showed us how her action led to the whole civil rights movement, what happened at the court, what other blacks did other than refusing to ride the bus. And what happened to NAACP, those people just seemed to disappear from her life entirely.

This comment is to commemorate the historic event fifty years ago whereby Rosa Parks refused to relinquish her seat on the bus in the devastatingly volatile southern state of Alabama. Her actions accelerated the snail's pace progress of civil rights tremendously!!..It is alarming to realize that not all that long ago, we as a nation were hopelessly mired in an abyss of racial hatred so deep, that Rosa Parks set a nationwide precedent, by simply refusing to acquiesce to the premise of racial inequality!!...It is abhorrent and reprehensible to think!! that Rosa Parks was punished, and subject to criminal repercussions, just because she was told that as an individual, she was inferior, and she did not concur!!...Rosa Parks said NO!! to racial hatred!!!...Rosa Parks said NO!! to baseless presumptions!!! and Rosa Parks became nauseated to the breaking point to say ENOUGH!! when she was denied a right that is ascertained by the constitution, a right that is pronounced by the scripture, and a right that is decreed by God...The right of equality!!!

In the past fifty years , we have made great strides in civil liberties and rights accorded us...However, the single biggest killer wolf in sheep's clothing, and the most deadly form of hatred, is when we say that hatred no longer exists!!! Many atrocities stemming from hatred which have been vitiated in the last fifty years are a form of self congratulatory accomplishment, but by no means, any indication of complete progress..Hatred is an insidious assassin which can strike without notice, if we pretend that racial and social hatred no longer exist, then we are capitulating to a lethal ignorance which will inevitably set us back to the dreadful days of repugnant oppression!! This incident was socially appalling!! I am an individual who detests even a modicum of social inequity, this qualifies me to uphold what I believe in on this issue, and so many other issues pertinent to egalitarianism as well!!... When Rosa Parks refused to give her seat up some fifty years ago, she was not imbued by some lofty idealism, rather, she enforced her rudimentary insight to justifiably object to what she felt was a horrible injustice!! Rosa Parks serves as a shining inspiration to many Americans, and she has instilled in them, the indispensable spirituality, to covet the privilege of freedom, and to cherish the right of equality!!!