Remembering Rosa

NEA Today, Feb 2006

BOOK FOCUS

Remembering Rosa

IN THIS BEAUTIFULLY illustrated children's book, simply entitled Rosa, author activist Nikki Giovanni writes, "She sighed as she realized she was tired. Not tired from work, but tired of putting white people first. Tired of stepping off sidewalks to let white people pass, tired of eating at separate lunch counters and learning at separate schools....She had not sought this moment, but she was ready for it." You need not ask, "Rosa who?" Civil rights legend Rosa Parks, who died last October 24, sat down on a Birmingham bus one Thursday afternoon in December 1955 and then refused to give up her seat, as the law once required, to a white man. In choosing to stay seated, she stood up for civil rights and changed the world. Giovanni's book, published by Henry Holt and appropriate for all ages, is a glorious tribute.