Episode 42: Rosa Parks (After Montgomery)

Something a little different for you this month... I'm releasing what was originally my first Patreon-exclusive episode, Rosa Parks P3. If you need a refresher on Parts 1 and 2, just scroll back to 2022 and give those episodes a listen. Otherwise, let's dive into the conclusion of this incredible story:

The name Rosa Parks will be forever linked to the early years of the American Civil Rights Movement, particularly in the Deep South.  But she would spend more than half of her life living in Detroit, fighting against the racist policies and oppressive systems that were often overlooked and downplayed in the North.

In the decade following WW2 Parks, like many other African Americans, would flee racial violence in the South. Heading north, searching for the opportunity of a better way of life. What many of them would find was the same systems of segregation and degradation they had hoped to leave behind.

Rosa would refer to Detroit as "The northern promised land that wasn't." But she would meet these challenges head-on, with the same grit and quiet determination that had made her famous in Montgomery.