Our Auntie Rosa: Remembering the Life and Lessons of the Real Rosa Parks
“She was there, encouraging and helping us throughout our lives. To the world, she is Rosa Parks, but to us, she was simply and wonderfully ‘Auntie Rosa.’”—From Our Auntie Rosa
A warrior in the fight for freedom, justice, and equality, Rosa Parks had the vision for a better world. She demonstrated that one person’s actions can indeed make a difference. What many don’t know is the person behind the persona. “Auntie Rosa,” as she was called by the many nieces and nephews she helped raise, extended her love and encouragement to her closest kin. She was a guiding force and inspiration in their lives, and in this remarkable book they share with readers the great wisdom Auntie Rosa imparted to them.
In Our Auntie Rosa the family of Rosa Parks presents a collection of personal remembrances, reflections, and never-before-seen photos and letters that pay tribute to Rosa Parks’s incredible strength and determination. Parks’s brave act on a bus in Alabama on December 1, 1955, was just one moment in a life lived with great humility and decency. Our Auntie Rosa is a life’s instruction manual from one of the most famous figures in American history that will inspire generations to come.
Reviews
“Rosa Parks inspired millions of Americans in 1955, including a
nine-year-old boy in Arkansas learning about her story. Through the
pages of Our Auntie Rosa, her family captures the quiet dignity—and commanding conviction—of one of the civil rights movement’s bravest champions.”—President Bill Clinton
“For years Mrs. Rosa Parks’s family graciously shared her with the world. Yet the civil rights icon revered as the ‘Mother of the Movement’ was also their beloved ‘Auntie Rosa,’ and with Our Auntie Rosa they are now just as generously sharing their personal memories and photographs to give us all a chance to better know the extraordinary real woman and family whose courage changed history.”—Marian Wright Edelman, president, Children’s Defense Fund
“What a joy to discover that Rosa Parks, an international figure and ‘Mother of The Movement,’ was as dignified and heroic a private woman as she was a civil rights icon. This beautiful tribute, lovingly written by family members, completes the picture of a 20th century inspiration. As compelling as what she sat down for on a bus is what she stood for at home.”—Mitch Albom, author of Tuesdays with Morrie and The First Phone Call from Heaven
"Our Auntie Rosa gives us a glimpse into the private life of an extraordinary woman who played her part in American history with courage, intelligence, and grace. We are inspired by her life and forever grateful to her family for sharing her with us all."—Pearl Cleage, author of Things I Should Have Told My Daughter
“Rosa Parks’s bus-sitting was a stand-up call for millions and I was one of them. Yet there was a personal and public price to pay for her undaunted commitment to social justice and her people. Our Auntie Rosa is a powerful new telling and an insightful love note from her ‘daughters and sons’ whom she did not birth biologically, but through cultural and familial bonds they are linked nonetheless. This is a critical and contemplative immersion into their stories of their aunt and is a must-read if we are to accurately understand one of our nation’s most revered women and mother of the civil rights movement.”—Haki R. Madhubuti, author of YellowBlack
“Our Auntie Rosa is an enjoyable read about an icon shared through stories of family life, legacy, and living that convey Rosa Parks’s unmatched voice and influence on the modern-day civil rights movement.”—Joyce Beatty, U.S. congresswoman for Ohio's 3rd Congressional District
“For years Mrs. Rosa Parks’s family graciously shared her with the world. Yet the civil rights icon revered as the ‘Mother of the Movement’ was also their beloved ‘Auntie Rosa,’ and with Our Auntie Rosa they are now just as generously sharing their personal memories and photographs to give us all a chance to better know the extraordinary real woman and family whose courage changed history.”—Marian Wright Edelman, president, Children’s Defense Fund
“What a joy to discover that Rosa Parks, an international figure and ‘Mother of The Movement,’ was as dignified and heroic a private woman as she was a civil rights icon. This beautiful tribute, lovingly written by family members, completes the picture of a 20th century inspiration. As compelling as what she sat down for on a bus is what she stood for at home.”—Mitch Albom, author of Tuesdays with Morrie and The First Phone Call from Heaven
"Our Auntie Rosa gives us a glimpse into the private life of an extraordinary woman who played her part in American history with courage, intelligence, and grace. We are inspired by her life and forever grateful to her family for sharing her with us all."—Pearl Cleage, author of Things I Should Have Told My Daughter
“Rosa Parks’s bus-sitting was a stand-up call for millions and I was one of them. Yet there was a personal and public price to pay for her undaunted commitment to social justice and her people. Our Auntie Rosa is a powerful new telling and an insightful love note from her ‘daughters and sons’ whom she did not birth biologically, but through cultural and familial bonds they are linked nonetheless. This is a critical and contemplative immersion into their stories of their aunt and is a must-read if we are to accurately understand one of our nation’s most revered women and mother of the civil rights movement.”—Haki R. Madhubuti, author of YellowBlack
“Our Auntie Rosa is an enjoyable read about an icon shared through stories of family life, legacy, and living that convey Rosa Parks’s unmatched voice and influence on the modern-day civil rights movement.”—Joyce Beatty, U.S. congresswoman for Ohio's 3rd Congressional District
About the Authors
Sheila McCauley Keys is the seventh niece of civil rights heroine
Rosa Parks. In 2013, Keys was featured in PBS's live television
broadcast of the National Day of Courage, celebrating what would have
been Mrs. Parks's hundredth birthday. That same year, Keys joined
President Obama and legislators in unveiling a statue of Rosa Parks in
the Capitol Rotunda. Keys has become an active voice in efforts to
preserve her aunt's legacy.
Eddie B. Allen Jr. is the author of Low Road: The Life and Legacy of Donald Goines and is an award-winning reporter and freelance journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times and the Detroit Free Press, on BET.com, and with Reuters and the Associated Press. A Rosa Parks Scholarship recipient at age seventeen, he later covered Parks's nationally televised funeral, as well as various aspects of the freedom struggle that carries her footprint.
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