Rosa Parks, Revisited (“I wanted to see him kill a Ku Kluxer.”)
Charles Blow: Most of what you think you know about Rosa Parks may well be wrong.
On the verge of the 100th anniversary of her birth this Monday comes a fascinating new book, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, by Jeanne Theoharis, a Brooklyn College professor. It argues that the romanticized, childrens-book story of a meek seamstress with aching feet who just happened into history in a moment of uncalculated resistance is pure mythology.
As Theoharis points out, Rosas family sought to teach her a controlled anger, a survival strategy that balanced compliance with militancy.
Parks was mostly raised by her grandparents. Her grandfather, a follower of Marcus Garvey, often sat vigil on the porch with a rifle in case the Klan came. She sometimes sat with him because, as the book says she put it, I wanted to see him kill a Ku Kluxer.
When she was a child, a young white man taunted her. In turn, she threatened him with a brick. Her grandmother reprimanded her as too high-strung, warning that Rosa would be lynched before the age of 20. Rosa responded, I would be lynched rather than be run over by them.
More here: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/02/opinion/blow-rosa-parks-revisited.html?hp&_r=1&
Found on the Obamadiary