The real story of Rosa Parks -- and why we need to confront myths about black history

I am the proud father
of two beautiful children,

Elijah, 15, and Octavia, 12.

When Elijah was in the fourth grade,

he came to me,

came home from school bubbling over
with excitement about what he had learned

that day about African American history.

Now, I'm an African American
and Cultural Studies professor,

and so as you can imagine

African American culture
is kind of serious around my home.

So I was very proud that my son
was excited about what he had learned

that day in school.

So I said, "What did you learn?"

He said, "I learned about Rosa Parks."

I said, "OK, what did you learn
about Rosa Parks?"

He said, "I learned that Rosa Parks

was this frail old black woman

in the 1950s

in Montgomery, Alabama

and she sat down on this bus

and she had tired feet

and when the bus driver
told her to give up her seat

to a white patron,

she refused because she had tired feet,

it had been a long day,

and she was tired of oppression,

and she didn't give up her seat.

And she marched with Martin Luther King

and she believed in non-violence."

And I guess he must have looked at my face

and saw that I was
a little less than impressed

by his history lesson.

And so he stopped, and he was like,
"Dad, what's wrong? What did I get wrong?"

I said, "Son, you didn't
get anything wrong,

but I think your teacher
got a whole lot of things wrong."

He said, "Well, what do you mean?"

I said, "Rosa Parks was not tired.

She was not old.

And she certainly didn't have tired feet."

He said, "What?"

I said, "Yes!"

Rosa Parks was only 42 years old.

Yeah, you're shocked, right?
Never heard that.

Rosa Parks was only 42 years old,

she had only worked six hours that day,
and she was a seamstress,

and her feet were just fine.

The only thing that she was tired of

was she was tired of inequality.

She was tired of oppression.

And my son said,

"Well, why would my teacher
tell me this thing?

This is confusing for me."

Because he loved this teacher,
and she was a good teacher,

and young-ish, 20-something white woman,

really, really smart, pushed him,
so I liked her as well.

But he was confused.
"Why would she tell me this?" he said.

He said, "Dad, tell me more. Tell me more.
Tell me more about Rosa Parks."

And I said, "Son, I'll do you one better."

He was like, "What?"

I said, "I'm going to buy
her autobiography

and I'm going to let you
read it yourself."

(Laughter)

So as you can imagine,

Elijah wasn't too excited about
this new lengthy homework assignment

that his dad had just given him,
but he took it in stride,

and he came back

after he had read it

and he was excited
about what he had learned.

He said, "Dad, not only was Rosa Parks
not initially into non-violence,

but Rosa Parks' grandfather
who basically raised her

and was light enough to pass as white

used to walk around town
with his gun in his holster,

and people knew that if you messed
with Mr. Parks' children or grandchildren,

he would put a cap
in your proverbial bottom."

Right?

He was not someone to mess with.

And he said, "I also learned
that Rosa Parks married a man in Raymond

who was a lot like her grandfather.

He would organize.

He was a civil rights activist.

He would organize events

and sometimes the events would be
at Rosa Parks' home,

and one time Rosa Parks remarked

that there were so many guns on the table

because they were prepared for somebody
to come busting into the door

that they were prepared
for whatever was going to go down,

that Rosa Parks said there were
so many guns on the table

that I forgot to even
offer them coffee or food."

This is who Rosa Parks was,

and in fact Rosa Parks,

when she was sitting on that bus that day

waiting for those
police officers to arrive

and not knowing what was going
to happen to her,

she was not thinking about
Martin Luther King,

who she barely knew.

She was not thinking about
non-violence or Gandhi.

She was thinking about her grandfather,

a gun-toting take-no-mess grandfather.

That's who Rosa Parks was thinking about.

My son was mesmerized by Rosa Parks,

and I was proud of him
to see this excitement.

But then I still had a problem,

because I still had to go his school

and address the issue with his teacher,

because I didn't want her
to continue to teach the kids

obviously false history.

So I'm agonizing over this,
primarily because I understand,

as an African American man

that whenever you talk
to whites about racism

or anything that's racially sensitive,

there's usually going to be a challenge.

This is what white sociologist
Robin DiAngelo calls "white fragility."