Rosa Parks: In Her Own Words opens December 5 and showcases rarely seen materials that offer an intimate view of Rosa Parks and documents her life and activism—creating a rich opportunity for viewers to discover new dimensions to their understanding of this seminal figure. The materials are drawn extensively from the Rosa Parks Collection, a gift to the Library of Congress from the Howard G. Buffett Foundation.
For this exhibition, Library of Congress is offering a multitude of resources and opportunities to learn about this amazing woman in great depth. Here is a sampling of them:
Ask a Librarian Station
Wednesday through Saturday 10:30 – noon through December 21; additional hours to be announced. In a mobile research station in the exhibition, visitors will have the opportunity to delve more deeply into subjects, themes, collection materials, and online research resources related to Parks’s life through direct interaction with librarians and library volunteers.
Public Programs
Curator’s Tour: Rosa Parks
Friday, December 6, 2019, 11-11:30 am
Meet at the exhibition entrance, South Gallery, Second Floor, Thomas Jefferson Building. Exhibition curator and Manuscript Division specialist Adrienne Cannon will lead a tour of highlights of the new exhibition on Rosa Parks.
Gallery Talk: Rosa Parks, Before the Bus
Wednesday, February 5, 2020, 11:00-11:30 am
Inside the exhibition, South Gallery, Second Floor, Thomas Jefferson Building.
In honor of the anniversary of Rosa Parks’s birth on February 4, exhibition curator Adrienne Cannon will discuss Parks’s childhood and family life before the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Book Talk: Deep South Dispatch: Memoir of a Civil Rights Journalist
Date and Time TBA, LJ-119 – check the Library’s events page for updates.
Anne Farris Rosen discusses her father John Herbers’ memoir, Deep South Dispatch: Memoir of a Civil Rights Journalist. Herbers, a New York Times correspondent, covered the civil rights movement in the South for more than a decade, including the trial for the murder of Emmett Till, the murders of four young black girls in the Birmingham, Alabama church bombing, and multiple civil rights marches. Event to include a display of selected original newspapers, comic books, and graphic novels related to the civil rights movement.
The Life and Legacy of Rosa Parks
Thursday, February 13. 6:00-9:00 pm, Thomas Jefferson Building – Registration will be required. Check the Library’s events page for registration information. The Thomas Jefferson Building and the exhibition will remain open throughout the event, with tours available between programs.
Printmaker Amos Kennedy & Socially Conscious Art
Thursday, April 2, 2020, at 6 pm, LJ-119
In this conversation with Library of Congress Curator of Fine Prints Katherine Blood, printmaker Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr. will discuss his artistic inspiration, with particular focus on Rosa Parks, and the work and role of socially conscious art. Items of Kennedy’s work will also be on special display. Kennedy will follow the discussion with a demonstration of his work from 5:30-6:00 pm.
Online Resources including Digitized Collections
Rosa Parks Papers, 1866–2006
The collection documents many aspects of Parks’s private life and public activism on behalf of civil rights for African Americans.
Rosa Parks: A Resource Guide
This guide provides access to digital materials related to civil rights activist Rosa Parks (1913–2005) at the Library of Congress, as well as links to external websites and a selected print bibliography.
Webcasts
Rosa Parks: Beyond the Bus
Elaine Steele, Ella McCall Haygan, and Anita Peek give first-hand accounts of Mrs. Parks’ life and legacy after her historical arrest.
Rosa Parks Collection: Telling Her Story at the Library of Congress
Highlights of the collection of Rosa Parks, a seminal figure of the Civil Rights Movement, was placed on loan with the Library in 2014 and became a permanent gift in 2016 through the generosity of the Howard G. Buffett Foundation. This video contains highlights from the collection and a look behind the scenes at how the Library’s team of experts in cataloging, preservation, digitization, exhibition and teacher training are making the legacy of Rosa Parks available to the world.
Online Exhibitions
African-American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship
This exhibition showcases the incomparable African American collections of the Library of Congress. Rosa Parks’s role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott is mentioned in the Civil Rights section.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for Freedom
This exhibition, which commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, explores the events that shaped the civil rights movement, as well as the far-reaching impact the act had on a changing society.
Voices of Civil Rights
This exhibition documents events during the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. This exhibition draws from the thousands of personal stories, oral histories, and photographs collected by the “Voices of Civil Rights” project.
“With an Even Hand”: Brown v. Board at Fifty
This exhibition includes a photograph of Rosa Parks being fingerprinted as well as images of her arrest record.
Publications
In association with the University of Georgia Press, the Library of Congress will publish Rosa Parks: In Her Own Words, as a companion to the exhibition. Written by Susan Reyburn with a foreword by Carla D. Hayden, Librarian of Congress, the publication will be available for sale in the Library’s gift shop beginning in December and online in January 2020.
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