Angela Bassett honours Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4 1913 - October 24 2005). Parks knew that "you can't be careful and be effective". In 1955 it was her act of refusal to give up her seat on a segregated bus to a white person that ignited the wave of protests across the United States and catapulted Martin Luther King Jr to the leadership of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), culminating in the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Bassett plays the heroic woman and has produced the film. It won many awards, including an Emmy for her role as Rosa Parks. The Rosa Parks Story spans events between 1924 when Rosa McCauley was 11-years-old (acted by Chard Manzy) and attending an Industrial School for Girls. She already has developed strong convictions about right and wrong and the need for action, partly based on the gleanings from an enlightened grandfather Sylvester Edwards (Charles Black), and encouraged by her Quaker teachers who taught that "all people are the same". The story goes through to the bus boycott that transformed Montgomery, Alabama, and the rise of Reverend King.
