The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks (59 page)

96
. John Conyers, interview by George Metcalf, April 8, 1970, SC.

97
. John Conyers, oral history interviews on tape, SC.

98
. John Conyers, interview by George Metcalf, SC.

99
. “Detroit Primary Runs Into White ‘Backlash’ But Not Enough to Make It Election Guide,”
Wall Street Journal
, September 3, 1964.

100
. In 1967, courts in both places would declare these referendums unconstitutional.

101
. James Brooks, “2nd Negro Congressman from Detroit This Nov,”
Chicago Defender
, October 3, 1964.

102
. Ibid.

103
. Conyers, author interview.

104
. “America Salutes Rosa Parks,” video of Kennedy Center celebration, 1990, SC.

105
. Adam Shakoor, author phone interview, September 9, 2010.

106
. “Warrior Conyers’ Battle Cry: ‘You Can Prevent Ghetto Fires,’”
Christian Science Monitor
, September 8, 1969.

107
. JoAnn Watson, Leon Atchison, and Larry Horwitz, author interview, May 5, 2011.

108
. I am grateful for conversations with Douglas Brinkley that helped me clarify this section.

109
. Fine,
Violence in the Model City
.

110
. Brinkley,
Rosa Parks
, 189.

111
. Watson, Atchison, and Horwitz, author interview.

112
. Hate letter, May 19, 1969, Box 1, Folder 1–7, RPP.

113
. Hate letter, March 8, 1971, Box 1, Folder 1-7, RPP.

114
. Hate letter, April 5, 1972, Box 1 Folder 1-7, RPP.

115
. Ned Touchstone, “Rosa Admits to Editor That She Attended Notorious Training School,”
Councilor
(publication of the White Citizen’s Council in Shreveport), Folder 2–17, RPP.

116
. Jason Sokol,
There Goes My Everything: White Southerners in the Age of Civil Rights
(New York: Knopf, 2006), 90.

117
. Conyers says that even before he was elected he had decided that “when I get elected the first person I will hire is Rosa Parks.” Conyers, author interview.

118
. Watson, Atchison, and Horwitz, author interview.

119
. Atchison claims Parks had sizable medical bills for her mother and husband, though it’s not clear if he’s referring to the 1970s or to 1965, when she was first hired. Skwira, “The Rosa Parks Story,” 18.

120
. Jamila Brathwaite, author phone interview, March 8, 2011.

121
. Watson, Atchison, and Horwitz, author interview.

122
. Conyers, author interview.

123
. Parks, CRDP, 31–32.

124
. Interview with Carter, Rosa Parks, Box 2, File 7, GMP.

125
. The others were Phil Burton, George Brown, Don Edwards, Bill Ryan, John Dow, and Edith Green. “Michigan Legislator Named SCLC ’67 Award Recipient,”
Chicago Defender
, August 15, 1967.

126
. Watson, Atchison, and Horwitz, author interview, May 5, 2011.

127
. Fred Durhal, author phone interview, May 21, 2012.

128
. Watson, Atchison, and Horwitz, author interview, May 5, 2011.

129
. In July 1965, Horton wrote Parks to ask if she was willing, on the suggestion of John Segenthaler of the
Nashville Tennessean
, to sue the White Citizens’ Council in connection with the billboards in Tennessee. It is not clear if this went anywhere. Horton to Parks, July 15, 1965, Box 22, Folder 22, HP.

130
. Taylor Branch,
At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-1968
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), 161.

131
. Brinkley,
Rosa Parks
, 198.

132
. Parks interview transcripts, Box 40, Folder 2, JHC.

133
. Rosa Parks,
Rosa Parks: My Story
(New York: Dial Books, 1992), 192.

134
. Parks interview transcripts, Box 40, Folder 2, JHC.

135
. David Levering Lewis,
King: A Biography
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978), 291.

136
. Horton to Parks, April 15, 1965, Box 22, Folder 22, HP; Taylor Branch,
Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–63
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988), 164.

137
. Renata Adler, “Letter from Selma,”
New Yorker
, April 10, 1965.

138
. Rosa Parks, preface to Beatrice Siegel,
Murder on the Highway: The Viola Liuzzo Story
(New York: Four Winds Press, 1993), 2–3.

139
. Memo from Myles Horton, April 1, 1965, Folder 2–17, RPP.

140
. Rosa Parks, Myles Horton, and E. D. Nixon, radio interview by Studs Terkel, June 8, 1973, transcript, Box 14, Folder 4, MHP.

141
. Branch,
At Canaan’s Edge
, 164.

142
. Brinkley,
Rosa Parks
, 198.

143
. The Durrs had a big gathering after the march that Parks did not attend; many white progressives went, including C. Vann Woodward, Nat Hentoff, and Pete Seeger.

144
. Parks’s preface, Siegel,
Murder on the Highway
, 3.

145
. Parks,
My Story
, 192.

146
. Branch,
At Canaan’s Edge
, 188.

147
. Ibid., 202; WPAC newsletter, Box 4, RPP.

148
. Noonan, author phone interview.

149
. Wesley Hogan,
Many Minds, One Heart: SNCC’s Dream for a New America
(Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 2007).

150
. Dan Aldridge, author phone interview, October 24, 2010.

151
. See Jeffries,
Bloody Lowndes
.

152
. Ibid., 71.

153
. Branch,
At Canaan’s Edge
, 455.

154
. Faith Holsaert et al.,
Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2010), 509.

155
. Dorothy Aldridge, author phone interview, October 24, 2010.

156
. Carol Schmidt, “Individualism a Luxury We Can No Longer Afford,”
Michigan Chronicle
, October 8, 1966.

157
. Brinkley,
Rosa Parks
, 191–92.

158
. Ed Vaughn, author phone interview, September 10, 2010.

159
. Barbara Alexander, author phone interview, May 23, 2012.

160
. Vaughn, author phone interview.

161
. Moon,
Untold Tales
, 381.

162
. Johnson,
Race and Remembrance
, 56.

163
. Moon,
Untold Tales
, 358.

164
. Fine,
Violence in the Model City
, 1.

165
. Smith,
Dancing in the Street
, 193.

166
. Henry Hampton,
Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement from the 1950s through the 1980s
(New York: Bantam, 1990), 378.

167
. Ibid., 391.

168
. James Smethurst,
The Black Arts Movement
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005), 225.

169
. Ed Vaughn, interview conducted by Blackside, Inc., June 6, 1989, for
Eyes on the PrizeII
, available at Washington University Digital Library,
http://digital.wustl.edu/eyesontheprize/
.

170
. Smith,
Dancing in the Street
, 197.

171
. Robert Mast,
Detroit Lives
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994), 170.

172
. Fine,
Violence in the Model City
, 296

173
. Dorothy Aldridge, author interview, March 22, 2012.

174
. Selby,
Odyssey
, 66.

175
. Brinkley,
Rosa Parks
, 202–3.

176
. Selby,
Odyssey
, 66.

177
. Rosa Parks, interview by Steven Millner, January 20, 1980, in David Garrow, ed.,
The Walking City: The Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955-1956
(Brooklyn, NY: Carlson Publishing, 1989), 566.

178
. Hampton,
Voices of Freedom
, 392.

179
. Conyers, author interview.

180
. Selby,
Odyssey
, 66.

181
. Sugrue,
Sweet Land of Liberty
, 346.

182
. Smith,
Dancing in the Street
, 197.

183
. Brinkley,
Rosa Parks
, 203. Brinkley interviewed Parks in the 1990s; this and his critical view of the riots likely shaped her comments in their interview. Brinkley also quotes a 1971
Ebony
article in which Parks is displeased by “lootings and burnings in the name of civil rights” but does not finish the rest of her quote: “Regardless of whether or not one person may know what to do about segregation and oppression, it’s better to protest than to accept injustice.” “Whatever Happened to Mrs. Rosa Parks,”
Ebony
, August 1971.

184
. Parks, CRDP, 29.

185
. Selby,
Odyssey
, 66.

186
. Ibid.

187
. Parks interview, BWOHP, 256.

188
. “Whatever Happened to Mrs. Rosa Parks,”
Ebony
, August 1971.

189
. Hampton,
Voices of Freedom
, 400.

190
. “$30 Billion Aid Program Offered by Rep. Conyers,”
Norfolk (VA) Journal and Guide
, August 26, 1967.

191
. Dan Aldridge, author phone interview.

192
. Smith,
Dancing in the Street
, 201.

193
. Ibid.

194
. Ibid., 287.

195
. Ibid., 200–202; Fine,
Violence in the Model City
, 286.

196
. Dan Aldridge, author phone interview.

197
. Dorothy Aldridge, author phone interview, October 24, 2010.

198
. Fine,
Violence in the Model City
, 286. The Detroit Bar Association considered disbarring the lawyers who participated in the trial.

199
. John Hersey,
Algiers Motel Incident
(New York: Hamilton, 1968), 350.

200
. Dorothy Aldridge, author phone interview.

201
. Rhea McCauley, author phone interview.

202
. L. C. Fortenberry, “The Sentinel Queries Rosa Parks,”
Los Angeles Sentinel
, August 17, 1958.

203
. Parks, Millner interview, in Garrow,
The Walking City
, 566.

204
. Tom Greenwood, “Grosse Pointe Recalls King’s Emotional Visit in 1968,”
Detroit News
, March 14, 1988.

205
. “Rosa Parks: Spark of 1955 Still Warm,”
Los Angeles Times
, June 3, 1971.

206
. For full text of the speech, audio recording, and accompanying press, see “Dr. Martin Luther King’s 1968 Speech at Grosse Pointe High School,” Grosse Pointe Historical Society website,
http://www.gphistorical.org/
.

1
. Rosa Parks with Gregory J. Reed,
Quiet Strength
:
The Faith, the Hope, and the Heart of a Woman Who Changed a Nation
(Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1994), 17.

2
. A. F. Mahan, “Active Rights Movement Began on a Bus,”
Record
, August 26, 1964.

3
. “‘I’d Do It Again’ Says Rights Action Initiator,”
Los Angeles Times
, December 16, 1965.

4
. Rosa Parks, interview by John H. Britton, September 28, 1967, CRDP, 33.

5
. Earl Selby and Miriam Selby,
Odyssey: Journey through Black America
(New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1971), 66.

6
. Parks, CRDP, 21.

7
. Interview transcripts, Box 40, Folder 2, JHC.

8
. Muhammad Ahmad, author phone interview, January 7, 2011.

9
. Julian Bond, author phone interview, November 15, 2010.

10
. William Anderson, author phone interview, May 6, 2011; Herb Boyd, author interview, June 11, 2011.

11
. JoAnn Watson, Leon Atchison, and Larry Horwitz, author interview, May 5, 2011.

12
. Rosa Parks, interview, June 19, 1981,
You Got to Move
research files, Folder 1, Box 11, LMP.

13
. John Conyers, author interview, March 11, 2011.

14
. Chokwe Lumumba, author phone interview, September 9, 2010.

15
. Frank Joyce, author phone interview, March 28, 2012.

16
. Bob Greene, “Impact of a Single Act” (1973), Folder 1–7, RPP.

17
. Douglas Brinkley,
Rosa Parks: A Life
(New York: Penguin, 2000), 189.

18
. Carolyn Green, author phone interview, May 29, 2012.

19
. Ed Vaughn, author phone interview, September 10, 2010.

20
. Rosemary Bray, “Rosa Parks: A Legendary Moment, a Lifetime of Activism,”
Ms
., November/December 1995, 46–47.

21
. Watson, Atchison, and Horwitz, author interview.

22
. Vernon Jarrett, “Forgotten Heroes of the Montgomery Bus Boycott,” series,
Chicago Tribune
, December 1975.

23
. Conyers, author interview.

24
. Vaughn, author phone interview.

25
. Watson, Atchison, and Horwitz, author interview.

26
. Chokwe Lumumba, author phone interview.

27
. Parks,
Quiet Strength
, 51.

28
. Rosa Parks,
Rosa Parks: My Story
(New York: Dial Books, 1992), 174–75.

29
. Brinkley,
Rosa Parks
, 14.