Voices for the Future: The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks
A Conversation with the Documentary Filmmaker Yoruba Richen
Voices for the Future is a podcast series that I co-host with my collaborator Anodea Judith.
The next program is Tuesday, February 28 at 6pm Eastern/3pm Pacific and will be a discussion with the documentary filmmaker Yoruba Richen about her new film, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, currently streaming on NBC's Peacock network.
You can attend for free on Zoom at https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83155483028
Yoruba Richen is an Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker whose work has been featured on multiple outlets, including PBS, New York Times Op Doc, Frontline Digital, Netflix, MSNBC, FX, and HBO.
Her most recent film, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks was nominated for a Critics Choice Award.
Other recent films of hers include How It Feels to Be Free; The Sit In: Harry Belafonte Hosts the Tonight Show; and Green Book: Guide to Freedom, which was broadcast on the Smithstonian Channel to record audiences and was awarded the Henry Hampton Award to Excellence in Documentary Filmmaking.
Yoruba is a past Guggenheim and Fulbright fellow and a recipient of the Chicken & Egg Breakthrough filmmaker’s award. She is the founding director of the Documentary Program at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY.
Yoruba's 2022 film on Rosa Parks is based on the bestselling biography by Jeanne Theoharis and executive produced by award-winning journalist Soledad O’Brien.
The film depicts Rosa Parks' life-long dedication to justice, and chronicles her childhood, her activism before and during the historic Montgomery Bus Boycott, her work for Congressman John Conyers in Detroit, and her involvement in causes such as voting rights, anti-apartheid, reparations, fair housing, women’s rights, and the fight against police violence.
While Rosa Parks is most famous for refusing to move to the back of a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama at a time when seating in the bus was segregated and White people sat in the front and Black people sat in the back, her entire life was dedicated to equality and fairness.
Following her death on October 24, 2005, she was accorded the rare tribute of having her remains lie in honor in the Rotunda of the US Capitol in recognition of her contribution to advancing civil and human rights.
And in 2013, around the 100 year anniversary of her birth, a statue of Rosa Parks was unveiled in the US Capitol, the first full-length statue of an African American person in the U.S. Capitol.
Here's the trailer for the film: