The Rosa Parks Story is a 2002 American television movie written by Paris Qualles and directed by Julie Dash. It was broadcast by CBS on February 24, 2002.

Plot

It tells the story of civil rights heroine Rosa Parks, whose refusal to obey a Montgomery, Alabama segregation law prompts the first major Civil Rights demonstration in the country. As a child, Rosa is educated in a private school run by the Religious Society of Friends, where she is encouraged to overcome the limitations of segregation placed upon her and other African Americans in her home state of Alabama. In her late teens she marries barber Raymond Parks, an advocate of equal rights for all. She eventually joins the local branch of the NAACP, although her husband believes that the organization is ineffective in its ongoing battle against legalized racism. On December 1, 1955, after working all day, the exhausted department store seamstress takes a seat in the designated "colored" section of a Montgomery city bus. When the "white" section at the front fills up, the white driver orders Parks to relinquish her seat. She refuses and is arrested and jailed. Her action results in a bus boycott and has a major impact on local religious leader Martin Luther King Jr. Eventually a ruling by the Supreme Court declares bus segregation unconstitutional.

Critical reception

Laura Fries of Variety called it "a tasteful and stylish biopic [1] should be considered required viewing." She had high praise for Angela Bassett, and said, "In lesser hands, the subtleties of Rosa's personality could be misinterpreted or grossly underplayed. As it is, this flesh-and-blood account is award-worthy material." Variety review, February 21, 2002