BONUS: Rosa Parks is More Than Just the Lady on the Bus

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Hello and welcome to this bonus episode of America, a history podcast recorded straight after our

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recently published episode, Who is Rosa Parks? I'm joined now by the guests from that episode,

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Nicholas Grant and Jean-Pierre Harris to discuss this a little bit more. Both of you thank you

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so much for hanging on. Thank you. Very happy to do it. And firstly, thank you for joining

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me on the main podcast as well. Anyone that's listening to this, do check that out. genuinely

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such a fascinating discussion about the life of Rosa Parks and how that sort of fits in

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to the broader sort of civil rights movement. I think, you know, it's something that we touched

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on in the main episode, but, you know, it's so easy to just think of Rosa Parks and these

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other figures as, you know, for instance, you know, she was just a brave woman who sat on

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a bus and said she wouldn't move and then all the white people were like, amazing, let's

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end racism. But there's so much more to the whole conversation than that. And, you know,

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I wonder if, you know, either of you could maybe expand on that a bit in terms of how we're

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teaching the civil rights movement and why, you know, these particular instances, you know,

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shouldn't necessarily be addressed in total isolation. I was wondering if I could ask kind

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of a follow-up question based around that to Jean, because of all of the work that you've

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done, like making this in terms of public history, Jean, like in terms of the Zin. education project,

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the documentary, converting the first book into a book for young adults. And then juxtaposing

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that with the recent comments at Trump's inauguration dinner about Musk and Trump being similar to

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Parks. You've done so much work on that, that has resonated with so many people, but then

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you still see this happening by people who you kind of expect it from. How has it been doing

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that public engagement work and that public history work and how rewarding has it been?

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I guess it's my question to kind of lead on from what Liam was saying in terms of re-educating

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people about the civil rights movement and translating the kind of cutting edge scholarship that you

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and others have been doing on there. Yeah. So I mean, I think sometimes it feels like pushing

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against a tidal wave. And in some ways, like the Trump Musk stuff is just horrifying. But

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some of the stuff that makes me even kind of maybe more upset is like, you know, sometimes

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like a city will decide for her birthday that they're going to like cordon off a seat on

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the bus for her. It's like, who needs that? Right? Like who asked for that? Like if we're

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going to actually honor Rosa Parks, right? And Rosa Parks to the end of her life, she dies

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in 2005, is like the movement's not over. The struggle continues, we have a lot more work

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to go. And so the ways that people honor her that's about like just putting it in the past

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or fixing her on the bus when there's so many injustices that she was fighting that we still

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need done. So it both feels very overwhelming. And then, as you said, Nick, I sort of I feel

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like we're just the wraparound of the project. So just trying to intervene on many different

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levels. That I came first to the book in some ways very horrified by the way that she'd been

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trapped in the kind of young adult curriculum and that there was no serious footnoted biography

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of Rosa Parks till my book came out. But so many children's books, young adult books. So

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for years, I really resisted doing a young adult book because I was in some ways I didn't want

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her like I was, you know, in many ways part of the point was like she was worthy of a long

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serious footnoted biography. But then, right, the kind of skin in the game of, well then

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what are people gonna teach and needing to, and felt like I didn't have the, like it wasn't

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okay just to be like, I don't like this, I don't like this, like that I needed to then do some

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of the work. So we did the YA and then the amazingness of, you know, getting the Ford Foundation to

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kind of fund this sort of curriculum building around both the YA and the film. and kind of

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getting to see and imagine, you know, I think for Nick and I, right, like having students

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come to us that actually have learned this differently is sort of the dream, right? That you don't

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have to unlearn that, that you don't have to like, I don't have to teach them to like get

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rid of the things that they, you know, all these like false binaries in their heads, civil rights

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versus black power, north versus south, right? That they're coming, that the dream is that

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they're gonna come in. right, with a more rich sense of this history. And so we can go so

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much farther. So the public stuff, I mean, it's both very exciting. So imagining that possibility,

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right, which has not really happened that much yet, but sometimes I do get students who have

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learned some of this. And so imagining a generation that learns this differently is really exciting.

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And I do think people are extremely hungry for it. And that part of this kind of backlash,

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at least in the United States, against the teaching of black history is precisely because young

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people are so hungry, right? It is because there's a demand, because teachers are starting to

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teach things differently that we've seen in the US, particularly over the past four or

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five years, this like book banning, but it's because there's a growing demand for it, right?

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And so it's sort of... both the kind of best of times, worst of times, feeling with that,

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right? Where it's like, these are horrifying laws and yet the laws are happening precisely

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because the demand is there. Not to be a bit of a Debbie Downer about this, but I do wonder,

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like, one of the risks nowadays with people wanting to be proactive and do their own research

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and really explore something like this is that there's such a proliferation of... misinformation

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and in an age where America is very divided and at times these are on you know racial grounds

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and how that ties in politically as a conversation for another day but you know there's a lot

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of stuff out there that isn't necessarily accurate you know is there is can that be a risk to

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people who do want to go out there and try and you know find out their own information? I

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think it speaks to the importance of having things like that that's available, right? Like,

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and that that's there to count some of those myths and those narratives or to be like reliable

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information that is coming from like peer reviewed work that has been kind of debated and discussed.

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by lots of people over time and have that translated. I think that that's really important. I don't

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know, I could be completely wrong. And I'm aware that I teach in a, you know, kind of medium

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sized UK university with students who've chosen to come and do history and politics. So I'm

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talking to, I'm in a slight bubble there as well. I think I've got a lot of students who

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are incredibly skeptical of things that they hear and see online. And they could just be

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really good at using AI, but I don't think that's the case. I think they are actually like, go

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and do research and to find out information on their own, particularly in the last like

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three or four years, which I hadn't seen previously. And I think they kind of realised the importance

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of trying to find counter narratives and to try and like find evidence, not everyone. And

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I kind of said that like, but I always I'm teaching students who are very good at questioning things

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and say, hang on, that doesn't sound right. Or who kind of go off and do their own independent

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research and then kind of hit me with those questions, which I often don't know the answer

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to. to, but they've kind of, you know, thought about it and they're critiquing the information

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that they're getting. So sorry, that's going off on a bit of a tangent, but I think... Yeah,

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it's incumbent on people in academia to translate research that they believe to be correct. I

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mean, as much as research can be correct or can be as accurate as possible and to disseminate

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it into the public arena so that you can counteract that misinformation. But I do think younger

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people on the whole are not everyone. And I know there's a subset that can go down rabbit

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holes and follow kind of myths and conspiracy theories. But there's a lot of people, I think,

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who genuinely kind of take a lot of the stuff that they see online or they see from politicians

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with a massive pinch of salt. and want to do their own research and want that to be good

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research. And that's kind of what the arts and humanities can offer, I think, in an age where

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it's being decimated around the world as something that has any value. But I think that's what

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it does offer in this age of AI and misinformation and all of that kind of stuff. Yeah, I think

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it's a really important point there and where budgets are being pinched around the world

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and universities everywhere, I think the value of, you know, a seminar room

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to having these discussions and sharing these ideas. So I'm gonna leave it on that optimistic

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note. Nick, Jean, thank you so much for joining me. And Jean, do remind everyone where they

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can buy your book and get more information from you. Again, my book, The Rebellious Life of

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Mrs. Rosa Parks, both the original edition, and then there's also one for young adults,

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they're available any place you buy books. You can order them any place you buy books, including,

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but certainly not limited to Amazon. And then we designed a curriculum to go with the young

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adult book and the film. And that can be found at Zinn for Howard Zinn, Z-I-N-N education

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project under the campaigns on top teaching Rosa Parks. Thank you. Wonderful. No, thank

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you for joining us on this podcast and anyone listening, if you haven't already, you can

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listen to the full episode right now on this feed. We'll put the link in the show notes

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and If you like what you hear you can support the show from as little as just $1 and if you

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can spare three then you get early access to all of our content as well which will make

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us really happy. Thank you so much for listening and goodbye.