>> Good afternoon.
Now we're going to begin our program.
>> Welcome to today's professional development
educator webinar from the Library of Congress.
Rosa Parks: In Her Own Words.
My name is Stacie Moats and I'm an
educational resources specialist
for the library's learning
and innovation office.
I'm joined by my colleagues Danna Bell,
Cheryl Lederle, and Kathy McGuigan
who will be helping me keep track of your
questions and share resources via the chat box.
A few housekeeping items before we get started.
For a smooth webinar experience today
and to save bandwidth we will not
be using video for our speakers.
You will be able to see our PowerPoint
slides, hear our voices, and use the chat.
And we will be recording this program.
We will serve this recording up
to you as soon as we are able.
As this event will be recorded,
please note that any questions
or other participant contributions
may be made publicly available
as part of the library's archives.
Participants in this live program
are eligible for a certificate
of participation [inaudible] one hour.
More on that at the end of the program.
As stated, you will have the opportunity to
talk to one another and the presenters via chat.
As you do so, make sure you select
all participants in the to box.
Please try it now if you have not yet.
While I'm introducing today's program,
please use the chat to tell us your name,
where you're joining us from,
and why you joined us today.
Again, please make sure you select
all participants in the to box.
And now onto today's programs--
program, "Rosa Parks: In Her Own Words".
The Library of Congress exhibition "Rosa Parks:
In Her Own Words" showcases rarely seen
materials that offer an intimate view
of Rosa Parks and documents her live in activism
creating a rich opportunity for students
to discover new dimensions to their
understanding of this seminal figure.
In this webinar for educators, you will gain
insights into the life of Rosa Parks and hear
from two educators on their plans to use
related digitized resources with students.
Session guests in order of presentation are:
Adrienne Cannon, Curator of the library's
"Rosa Parks: In Her Own Words"
exhibition, Andrea Lewis,
Education Resources Specialist also of the
Library of Congress, and Dr. Valerie Kinloch,
Renee and Richard Goldman Dean of the School
of Education at the University of Pittsburgh.
Dr. Kinloch is also vice president of NCTE,
the National Council of Teachers of English.
So, without further ado, I am pleased to
introduce Adrienne Cannon who will start us off.
>> Okay, we are having a little
bit of a technical difficulty
and Adrienne-- okay you should be unmuted now.
>> Good afternoon.
>> Loud and clear.
You sound great.
Thank you.
>> Okay. "Rosa Parks: In Her Own
Words" is the first major exhibition
of the Rosa Parks Collection.
The collection spans 140 years of family history
and consists of approximately 10,000 items
that document Rosa's heartaches and triumphs,
her everyday life, her activism, and her legacy.
Included are manuscripts, photographs, books,
honors and awards, drawings by school children,
and hundreds of cards thanking her for her work.
The collection was placed on loan with the
library in 2014 and became a permanent gift
in 2016 through the generosity of
the Howard G. Buffett Foundation.
Shortly after Carla Hayden was sworn in as the
14th Librarian of Congress in September 2016,
I introduced her to the Rosa Parks Collection.
Dr. Hayden felt that the library
had to share the collection
with the public for a much broader view.
Thus, "Rosa Parks: In Her
Own Words" was launched.
The fundraising proposal for the exhibition
was completed in the spring of 2017.
"Rosa Parks: In Her Own Words" is made
possible by the support of the Ford Foundation,
the Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation with
additional support from AARP, History,
Joyce and Thomas Moorehead,
and The Capital Group.
Development of the physical
exhibition began in September 2018.
The exhibition opened on December the 5th, 2019,
the 64th anniversary of the
Montgomery bus boycott.
The boycott, considered a pivotal
event in the civil rights movement,
was sparked by Rosa Parks' refusal to give
up her seat to a white man on a crowded,
segregated city bus in Montgomery,
Alabama on December the 1st, 1955.
The exhibition moves beyond that single,
celebrated act of civil disobedience
to tell the full story of Rosa Parks--
the seasoned, lifelong activist,
the woman behind the civil rights icon.
To tell the story, the exhibition draws
extensively from the Rosa Parks Collection.
Supplemental materials are
drawn from the NAACP records,
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porter records,
the National Audio Video Conservation Center,
and the Prints and Photographs Division.
The storyteller is Rosa Parks.
Rosa Parks' words are represented in the
exhibition by examples of her personal writings
on display., and quotes of her personal
writings and her book "Quiet Strength" printed
on wall panels that introduce each section
in the exhibition's six unique looping films.
And in the prints of artist Amos P.
Kennedy, Jr. The exhibition immerses visitors
in these various representations of
Rosa Parks' words as well as photographs
that she accumulated throughout her
life allowing her to tell her own story.
The exhibition begins with a photograph of
Rosa Parks emerging from a dark backdrop.
A woman many will recognize
but don't really know.
Half in shadow, half in light.
Bare faced without her glasses
but guarded still.
Pensively peering at the viewer behind the
barrier of a chair and posing a question,
a quote taken from one of the
manuscripts in the Rosa Parks papers.
"Is it worthwhile to reveal the
intimacies of the past life?
Would people be sympathetic or disillusioned
when the facts of my life are told?"
Rosa Parks decides to tell us her story.
The story unfolds in four sections; Early Life
and Activism, The Bus Boycott, Detroit 1957
and Beyond, and the final
section, A Life of Global Impact.
The Early Life and Activism section
focuses on the childhood experiences
that shaped Rosa Parks' character and activism.
Rosa Parks was born in Tuskegee, Alabama on
February the 4th, 1913 to James McCauley,
a skilled carpenter and stone mason, and
Leona Edwards McCauley, a school teacher.
This is a photograph of her
birthplace in Tuskegee.
Rosa's parents separated when
she was two and a half years old.
Leona moved in with her parents
in rural Pine Level, Alabama.
In this autobiographical sketch
Rosa recounts growing up on the farm
of her maternal grandparents, Sylvester
and Rose Edwards, with her mother Leona
and brother Sylvester who
was born in August 1915.
Sylvester Edwards was Rosa's first
political mentor and an ardent supporter
of the fiery black nationalist
leader Marcus Garvey.
Sylvester taught Rosa and his other descendents,
as she says, "never to accept mistreatment".
According to Rosa, quote, it was passed
down to us almost as in our genes.
In this sketch Rosa describes quote, keeping
vigil with grandfather to protect their home
from the Ku Klux Klan night riders.
She says, "I wanted to see him kill a Ku Kluxer.
He declared the first to invade
our home would surely die".
This when I was six or seven.
None came in our house.
Here we see an intimation of the feistiness
that would insight her famous 1955 bus stand.
When Rosa was 11, Leona enrolled her
in a private school in Montgomery,
The Montgomery Industrial School for
Girls, simply called Miss White's School.
The co-founder and principal Alice L. White
was a white spinster from Massachusetts.
Miss White was a strict disciplinarian.
The students were required to wear
uniforms and adhere to Christian morality.
Makeup, bobbed hair, jewelry,
movies, and dancing were forbidden.
Miss White closed the school the
year before Rosa was to graduate.
Rosa completed 9th grade at Booker T.
Washington Junior High School in Montgomery.
In this letter from Galatas Jacks
[assumed spelling], a former classmate
at Miss White's School who moved to Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania, she discusses her studies,
mutual friends, and teases Rosa about boys.
Timeless, universal topics that
tweens and teenage girls talk about.
So through this letter, students of a similar
age are able to relate to Rosa Parks as a peer.
Rosa left high school before graduation
to care for her ailing grandmother, Rose.
And after Rose's death she went back to
school for a short time but had to leave again
to take care of Leona who suffered from
Migraine headaches and swollen feet.
Rosa did occasional domestic
work but mainly tended the farm.
In the spring of 1931 while working
as a housekeeper, she was nearly raped
by a white neighbor of her employers.
After the incident that spring, a mutual
friend introduced Rosa to Raymond Parks,
a politically active barber 10 years her senior.
He proposed on the second date.
Rosa initially rebuffed his advances.
She thought he was too white she says.
But eventually she was won over by his
intelligent conversation, his personal demeanor,
his character, and his defiant attitude.
They married on December the 18th, 1932
at her mother's home in Pine Level.
Raymond was a charter member of the
Montgomery NAACP and active in the defense
of the Scottsboro boys-- nine black
youths falsely accused and convicted
of raping two white women on a
train near Scottsboro, Alabama.
Raymond recruits Rosa to the cause.
He teaches her how to channel her natural
feistiness into constructive political action.
And this is a letter from the NAACP records
that was written by Dr. P.A. Stephens,
a black physician and president of the
Methodist Episcopal Church Layman's Association
in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Many of the Scottsboro boys were
originally from Chattanooga, Tennessee.
And he is asking the NAACP for assistance
with the Scottsboro boys' defense.
One of the first letters
written in their behalf.
In 1943 Rosa joined the Montgomery NAACP
succeeding her former Miss White School's
classmate Johnnie Carr as secretary.
Under the leadership of Rosa and E.D. Nixon,
a civil rights leader and labor organizer,
the branch focused on voter registration and
investigated cases involving police brutality,
rape, murder, and discrimination.
In 1949, Rosa restarted the Montgomery NAACP
youth council and served as youth advisor.
The Bus Boycott section chronicles key--
the key events preceding Rosa's arrest
and the major milestones in
the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
The section also examines the fallout of
the arrest on Rosa and the Parks family.
The centerpiece of the section are these
autobiographical notes on yellow paper
in which Rosa reflects on her arrest.
She begins the notes by describing
her arrest by two white policemen.
She says I had been pushed
around all my life and I felt
at this moment I couldn't take it any more.
When I asked the policeman why we had to
be pushed around he said, he didn't know.
The law is the law.
You are under arrest.
I did not resist.
These are words that she repeated
in print and film interviews.
A familiar refrain that she
writes confidently in pen.
Next she describes her brief
incarceration at the Montgomery City Jail.
She wrote in her book, "Quiet
Strength", quote, "I sat in a little room
with bars before I was moved
to a cell with two other women.
I felt that I had been deserted
but I did not cry.
I said a silent prayer and I waited".
And thinking back to that moment she
continues on the second page of the notes,
"I want to feel the nearness
of something secure.
It is such a lonely, lost feeling
that I am cut off from life.
I am nothing.
I belong nowhere and to no one".
Then she describes the personal toll
of living under Jim Crow racism.
"There is just so much hurt,
disappointment, and oppression one can take.
The bubble of life grows larger.
The line between reason and
madness grows thinner".
And finally, she describes the broader
impact of what the criminal Jim Crow had done
to one life multiplied mullions of times
over these United States and the world.
"He walks us on a tightrope.
Little children are so conditioned
early in the segregated pattern
as they take their first toddling steps
and are weaned from the mother's breast".
Ending the notes on an image that evokes
the special nurturing relationship
that she had with children.
Rosa writes the last three
pages tentatively in pencil
because she is revealing her vulnerability.
In 1955, Raymond and Rosa reported
their gross income at $3,749,
considerably below the U.S.
median income of about $5,000.
They lived in public housing but they
were still able to make ends meet.
On January the 7th, 1956, Rosa was discharged
from the Montgomery Fair Department Store
where she worked as a tailor's
assistant in men's alterations.
Raymond was forced to resign his
job at the Maxwell Air Force Base.
They never worked in Montgomery again.
In August, 1957, Rosa, Raymond,
and Leona moved to Detroit
where her younger brother
Sylvester lived but they continued
to struggle to find steady employment.
In 1959, Rosa and Raymond reported
their annual income at only $661.
In the exhibition we juxtapose the couple's
1955 and 1959 federal income tax returns
to show their descent into dire poverty.
In 1955, Congressman John Conyers hired
Rosa to work as an administrative assistant
and receptionist in his Detroit office.
The position restored the
Parks to financial security.
Rosa retired in 1988.
Rosa remained active in the civil
rights movement while living in Detroit.
She was particularly inspired by the
courage and conviction of the new generation
of civil rights activists in the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee,
commonly known as SNCC, and the
growing black power movement.
This is a photograph of Rosa Parks
with Stokely Carmichael at a forum
at the University of Michigan in 1983.
In 1965 Carmichael became the director
of a SNCC voter registration
project in Lowndes County, Alabama.
In 1966, Rosa joined Carmichael and other SNCC
workers in Alabama to support the formation
of the Lowndes County Freedom
Organization, an independent political party
which used a Black Panther as its emblem.
When SNCC established an alliance with the
Black Panther party founded by Huey T. Newton
and Bobby Seale in 1968, Carmichael
was named prime minister of the party.
At a black power gathering in 1966 he
proclaimed Rosa Parks one of his heroes.
And she reciprocated her admiration for
the black power movement which evoked
in her memory her grandfather's Garveyism.
She attended a 1968 black power conference
with Carmichael and other leading advocates.
And during the 1979 and 1980 school year she
visited the Black Panther Community School
in Oakland where a play was
performed in her honor.
She also continued to advocate
for prisoner's rights.
She retained her interest in interracial rape
cases which began with the Scottsboro boys.
In 1952, 16 year old Jeremiah
Reeves, a talented drummer
and grocery delivery boy was having a consensual
relationship with a white woman customer
on his route in Montgomery, Alabama.
When the affair was discovered, she
cried rape to save her reputation.
He was convicted and sentenced to death.
The Montgomery NAACP interceded and
Rosa personally corresponded with Reeves
and helped get his poetry published.
But despite the persistent efforts of the
NAACP and Rosa and Martin Luther King,
Reeves was executed on March
the 28th, 1958 at the age of 22.
In 1987 Rosa co-founded with her
longtime friend Elaine Steele,
The Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for
Self Development to promote and direct youth
as a tribute to Raymond who died in 1977.
Raymond had a hardscrabble childhood.
He was largely self educated
and orphaned as a teenager.
He had always wanted to attend
college and one of the first programs
that the institute inaugurated
was a college scholarship program.
The final section of the exhibition, A
Life of Global Impact examines the legacy
that Rosa Parks left behind and the
impact that she had on the world.
The photograph that opens the section
shows Rosa at a Kennedy Center Gala
that celebrated her 77th birthday.
She is shown with three old Montgomery comrades,
activist Virginia Durr who was also a mentor,
her attorney Fred Gray and Johnnie Carr.
The 1955 Bus stand established Rosa
as an international symbol
of human dignity and freedom.
Her humble demeanor and philosophy of quiet
strength were particularly resonant in Asia.
In a letter in the exhibition, her friend
and collaborator Physician Author Deepak Chopra
recounts being touched by Rosa's bus stand
as a young boy in India and the effect it had on
his parents and his extended family who shared,
as he says in the letter, wounds
of slavery and subjugation.
They cheered and saluted the heroism
of the black woman, Rosa Parks.
Rosa also received an honorary
degree from SOKA University in Japan
and had her books translated into Japanese.
The three calligraphy strips that you
see show her name, Mrs. Rosa Parks,
written in Chinese, Arabic, Hindi, and Tamil.
They're a further testament to the
high esteem in which she was held.
In latter years Rosa received numerous belated
accolades including 43 honorary degrees
from colleges and universities.
On September the 15th, 1996, President Bill
Clinton awarded Rosa the Presidential Medal
of Freedom, the nation's highest
civilian honor in recognition for the--
her role in the civil rights movement.
She was unable to attend the White
House ceremony on September the 9th
in which 10 other distinguished
Americans were recognized.
She received her medal alone
in an oval office ceremony.
President Clinton later escorted Rosa
wearing the medal to the annual dinner
of the Congressional Black Caucus.
The exhibition ends with the same billboard
sized photograph of Rosa Parks at the entrance.
This time the photograph
is framed in two quotes.
The first is a sort of self epitaph.
It reads: "I want to be remembered as
a person who stood up to injustice.
And most of all I want to be
remembered as a person who wanted
to be free and wanted others to be free."
And the question becomes how do we break
away from the intricate web of injustice
to achieve the beloved community?
Dr. King's beloved community that Rosa
Parks scrolls on the most unique manuscript
in the exhibit, a pharmacy bag in
which she repeatedly writes the phrase,
"The struggle continues" and also refers
to Dr. King's "beloved community".
The last quote are Rosa's
instructions to us on how we break free
from the web-- the intricate web of injustice.
It is a rallying call to action.
It reads: "We must have courage, determination
to go on with the task of becoming free.
Not only for ourselves but
for the nation and the world.
Cooperate with each other.
Have faith in God and ourselves".
>> Wow, thank you so much Adrienne.
That was absolutely an incredible overview
of the exhibition [inaudible] everybody
and that you just packed so much
into that and we're really grateful.
Next I would like to introduce Andrea
Lewis who will discuss how she plans
to use this exhibition's resources in her work
with students as an educator for the library.
>> Thank you so much Stacie.
So what we have done is we
have taken that incredible--
I mean just such an amazing resource--
and turned it into a webinar for
students in grades four through eight.
And the working title for it right
now is "Rosa Parks: Freedom Fighter".
So this program is hot off the presses
and so we are still testing it.
Next slide please.
So what we do is we ask the students
to become examiners of history.
And we remind them that as an examiner,
you must use what you know, what you--
even if it's your opinion-- you use everything
you know to understand what you don't know
or what might seem very unfamiliar to you.
Next slide.
So we spend a lot of time using
different parts of the exhibition
so that we can become familiar
with that voice of Rosa Parks.
And this is one of those handwritten
pieces of paper from the exhibition.
And so we want to understand what she says.
So at the top of this piece of paper she tells
us basically that I will risk my life to stand
up and fight for what I think is right.
And she's saying this at 10 years old.
That's what she's telling us.
So that early on.
So this-- this spirit follows
her throughout her entire life.
Next slide.
We take time to travel back in time and we go
down to the mass meetings for
the Montgomery bus boycott.
And the reason that this slide is dark
is because we actually do storytelling
at that point in time and we tell the
students you don't have to look at the screen.
We want you to feel this in your heart.
Feel it or see it in your mind.
So they can walk around the room.
If they get excited they can wave
their arms in their air and they can--
or they could close their
eyes and just try to imagine,
because there were thousands
of people at this meeting.
So we get to listen to excerpts from the
speeches of E.D. Nixon from the storytelling
and we also do the, just a brief portion
of a very young Martin Luther King.
No one knew about him, he was
brand new at that point in time.
Next slide.
But at the end of that particular part
of the program we discover Rosa Parks
stands up but then she sits back down.
She never gets to the podium
and-- or the pulpit and speaks.
So we say it's a new day because we discover
too that the leadership at the time period
for the civil rights movement actually told her
she didn't have to worry about writing a speech.
And a lot of historians feel they
said that because she was a woman.
And that is something that is very
true of the civil rights movement.
Often women's voices were shut down.
So we write a speech for her and the students
finish this phrase in six words or less
and we listen to our speech that we have
written and imagine her at the pulpit doing it.
Next slide.
And then what happens is, and this is when
the students are beginning to change that role
of just being an examiner, we get one
of the students to unmute their mic
and they do this ending of the speech.
And what's happening is that
it's almost as though--
it's like trying on clothes or a costume
when you go down to Williamsburg.
But instead what they're doing is they're
trying on the voice of an activist
and they're beginning to speak for Rosa Parks.
Next slide.
And so what we do is we demonstrate that
the words that we used, even for the ending,
they come from speeches that Rosa Parks did.
Freedom. Equality.
Injustice.
Words that were very, very important to her.
Next slide.
So by the end, the students
are advocates for Rosa Parks.
And they finish this phrase
keeping in mind some might--
someone might walk up to them and
say you know I don't know Rosa Parks.
Or I only know that she refused
to give her seat up on that bus.
Well, they can enlighten those folks,
give them all kinds of stories.
So now Rosa Parks no longer speaks for herself.
The students speak for her and now we hear
their voices with this knowledge inside of them.
So that is our program.
And next slide.
Rosa Parks: Freedom Fighter.
And I thank you all very much and I'm
going to hand the mic back to Stacie.
>> Andrea, thank you so much.
I really-- I got the chills when you
said feel it, see it in your mind
and can imagine the students participating
in this and really just getting so much
from this powerful message of advocacy.
Thank you.
Next up we have Dr. Valerie Kinloch who will
be discussing her work at the University
of Pittsburgh with teachers in training
and how she might use this
exhibition's resources for young people.
So with that, Valerie I'm
going to turn it over to you.
>> All right, thank you so much.
Can you hear me?
Great. So I'm going to talk just for a few
minutes in reference to Rosa Parks and thinking
about teaching and teacher education ending
with a focus on black lives mattering.
And I want to just reiterate what was just
said in terms of examiners of history and being
in a place of knowing and also
thinking about students as advocates.
And so how do we begin to think about students
as advocates as we also think about ourselves
as teacher education advocates, as
teaching advocates and the work that we do
in our classrooms and in community spaces.
I'm going to ask for the next slide.
And so on this slide I was compelled to
include these two passages from Rosa Parks,
especially as we think about
teaching and teacher education.
Rosa Parks said, and I quote, "I hope to someday
see an end to the conditions in our country
that would make people want to hurt others".
And she said that passage in
reference to a violent situation
that happened to her in her home.
And really thinking about the responsibilities
that we have to work with each other to think
about the pain that we experience collectively
and individually and to attempt to think
about the conditions in this country that
would make people want to hurt one another.
And how can we actually resolve those
conditions as we think about justice for people.
When we think about students, Rosa Parks
actually said when students come to the class
and demand to be educated,
education will take place.
And it's this point here that
I want to connect to the Rosa
and Raymond Parks Institute
for Self Development.
As was talked about earlier, it was
founded by Parks and Elaine Steele in 1987.
And in this wonderful book title "The Rebellious
Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks", it is written that,
"this institute sought to deliver leadership
skills in young people to bring them
into the struggle for civil rights".
The institute stressed the importance
of self respect, comportment,
and education for liberation
to Detroit students.
And that black history for Rosa Parks had one of
the great transforming discoveries of her life
and hence she wanted to also pass that discovery
onto all of the young people who she met
in the work that she did cross her lifetime.
I think that this has a lot of promise
for how we think about teaching
and teacher education, particularly
in this country.
Can we go to the next slide?
And so Rosa said I'd like people to say I
am a person who always wanted to be free
and wanted it not only for myself.
How do we think about that notion of freedom as
we think about teaching and teacher education?
I think one way to do that is to ask
ourselves as teachers, as teacher educators,
as community leaders, as people
concerned with the education of students
across all grade levels, freedom means what?
Freedom looks like what?
Freedom must include what?
What is it freedom for?
And freedom for whom?
And when we begin to ask those questions
and we begin to tease away at the nuances
of this larger idea of freedom, then we can
engage young people and families and teachers
and principals and superintendents and community
folks in thinking deeply about freedom for what,
for whom, and what does freedom really mean.
And I think that's one of the major
promises of Rosa Parks and her legacy
for teaching and teacher education.
And finally the next slide.
And so as we think about teaching and teacher
education I do think that this is also a moment
for us to think about teaching, teacher
education, and the legacy of Rosa Parks
as we think about black lives mattering.
And we are in a moment in this country that
is not so far removed from where we were
when Rosa Parks sat on the bus, when Rosa
Parks said we need to talk about liberation
for black people, we need to talk about
coalition building, and we need to talk
about the education of students, of young
people, whether it was in Detroit or elsewhere.
And we get to this moment and the question
becomes how can the life of Rosa Parks help us
to better understand the
Black Lives Matter movement
and the various protests
happening across the world?
And that's a question I want to leave with you.
How do we begin to look at this amazing,
inspiring person, Mrs. Rosa Parks,
and the work that she did, often in obscurity
and really think about not just where we were
but how far have we come or
how far have we not come?
And it was Rosa Parks who said don't give
up and don't say the movement is dead.
She said this many years ago and we are still in
a moment where we are questioning the relevance
of blackness, black lives, and black education.
And so I think collectively
what I would want to leave you
with is this larger question that's posed here.
How can her life help us to understand
this Black Lives Matter movement?
But how can her life also help us to understand
the ways that these movements and protests have
to become a part of a larger conversation
about her life, her contributions,
and what we need to continue to do
to improve the world for teaching,
for teacher education, and for freedom.
And so I'll stop there and pass the mic.
>> Wow, thank you so much Valerie.
That was just incredible.
You've given us so much to think about as
educators continuing Rosa Park's legacy
in the context of today's protests and the
Black Lives Matter movement especially.
Before we begin discussing participant
questions, and I hope you'll continue
to post those to the chat box if you haven't
already, I do want to share some information
for those who might need to leave right
at 3 in case our discussion goes over.
So before you go, please give
us feedback using this link
which my colleague Danna is
also sharing in the chat box.
And if you want a certificate for
your live participation today,
please email your first name and
your last name to me, Stacie Moats,
and Danna I believe is also putting my
email in the chat box, in the next 48 hours.
And unfortunately after that time we
can't fulfill requests for certificates.
So do please get that to me.
We also hope that you will
join us for next week's session
on primary sources and information literacy.
And again before you move onto the questions,
I just want to thank each and every one of you
for joining us this afternoon and especially
just thank our incredible speakers--
Adrienne, Andrea, Valerie--
this is just phenomenal.
So thank you all.
And now with that I'm going to take
a look here at what has been posted.
So looks like one of our first questions
a little while back, Karen S. do you know,
and I'm assuming this is for
Adrienne, do you know what is missing
from the boxed set of the Medal of Freedom?
Adrienne?
>> What is missing from the box?
>> The boxed set of the Medal of Freedom.
Not certain--
>> The box-- the boxed set?
>> Um hum.
Must've been from the photograph
that we have of the [inaudible]--
>> Well when, let me, we didn't put the ribbon.
We did not-- we did not include
the ribbon with the medal
in the exhibition for conservation purposes.
>> Okay. So that may hopefully
answer the question.
>> But if there's anything else-- if
there's anything else missing in the box
that we received it within the box with the
ribbon and the medal as well as the certificate
from the auction house [inaudible] Jersey.
>> Great, thank you Adrienne.
Another question we received,
and Valerie I'll ask this of you.
Do you know if the Rosa and Raymond Parks
Institute is still open for membership?
>> That's a great question.
And information can be found at
RosaParks.O-R-G, RosaParks.org.
And it seems like they're
still taking donations.
They have a list of programs.
They have information about the
institute itself and so I do recommend
that folks do visit their homepage and
really figure out ways to get more involved.
I think it-- just when she created this with
Ms. Steele, it was an amazing opportunity for us
to think more broadly and expansively
about education not just being
within a school building, but
education across these different spaces.
And I just think that the legacy
of Rosa Parks could be honored
by us supporting the work of this institute.
So it's there at RosaParks.org.
>> Thank you so much.
And I know, I believe my colleague Danna has
shared that link as well in the chat box.
Andrea, the next question is for you
which I think you mentioned earlier
but let's just amplify it again, how can
educators get more information on the program
that you'll be piloting for
the Library of Congress?
>> Since it's not quite complete what
we're doing is just taking questions
if you just want more information
and then we're going to put it
into a database and send out information.
So they can use my email, alewis,
L-E-W-I-S at loc dot G-O-V, dot gov.
>> Terrific.
Thank you Andrea.
And Danna has also put your
email address into the chat box.
Boy this next question from
Darlene is wonderful.
It's a bit of a-- might need some more thought--
so take a second if you need it but I
think I'll pose it to you first Valerie.
How can we help students develop
that intrinsic desire to be educated?
And Andrea I might ask that of you next,
so if you want to think about that as well.
>> That is a great question.
So how can we help students to develop
an intrinsic desire to be educated?
That's a great question.
I will start by saying, you know, if I think
deeply about the complexities of Rosa Parks
and what we tend to not know about Rosa Parks,
you know yes, we know Rosa Parks sat on a bus.
We know she was jailed.
We know that Rosa Parks sacrificed a lot.
What we also should know is that Rosa Parks
eventually moved to Detroit and become--
continued to become-- continued to work as
a fearless advocate and activist and leader.
And so when we think of the life of Rosa
Parks and we think about this question
of how do we motivate students, I think that
we have the answer when we look at Rosa Parks.
It becomes a series of conversations about
how do we step out of the way and listen
to the voices of our kids and young
people telling us what they need in order
to actually receive the type of
education that they rightfully deserve?
How do we listen?
How do we take action based on what they say?
How do we follow them into different
spaces and places out of curiosity?
And we understand that curiosity
and play are fundamentally connected
to education and to learning.
And if all of our kids have a right to learn,
then we have this unwavering commitment
to pay attention to what they ask, what
they say, and to make resources available.
It's not just about standing in a
classroom and talking at students,
it is about being in community with young
folks and being able to give them examples.
Like the example of Rosa Parks, and to be
able to say so what else do we need to know
and how do we do this work with each other?
I think for me, that's that intrinsic,
that's that deep longing that we need
to ensure our kids have access to exploring.
I hope that makes sense.
>> Thank you so much Valerie, and yes
that really speaks to me especially
as a former preschool teacher, your comment
about curiosity and play and just that need
to step out of the way and
listen is so important.
Andrea, did you want to add
anything to that about, again,
how do we help students develop this
intrinsic desire to be educated?
>> Well I feel I-- I think that that
was just a fantastic answer but I think
that one thing we're going to have to assume
is that children do want to be educated,
they do want to be excited about things.
They love it.
They eat it up.
In fact, they tire you out
when they are interested.
So I think we need to assume
that, and as Valerie was saying,
that the students have to play a greater role.
Especially when you're a teen
you have to play a greater role
in determining what you learn about.
So it's more of a partnership.
So I think that's extremely important.
>> Thank you Andrea.
And we actually just got a follow-up question I
believe from Anne Marie back to Valerie as far
as committing to-- an unwavering
commitment to what our kids say.
How do we also do this work with each other?
And again thinking about your
experiences as a teacher educator,
you know, helping others become teachers.
How do we do this work with each other
is what Anne Marie is asking Valerie.
>> Anne Marie, that's a great question.
How do we do this work with
each other becomes the part
that we oftentimes, in my
opinion, don't talk about.
Often we're talking about what it is that we
have to teach, how we teach, how we evaluate,
and we're missing a big piece
of that sort of puzzle there.
And the big piece is we're not teaching
curriculum, we're teaching people.
We're teaching kids.
And in turn they're also teaching us.
And so how do we do this work with each other?
I'm going to give this quick from the School
of Education at the University of Pittsburgh.
You know I started here as Dean in 2017 and
I came into this space committed to equity
and justice and did not really see
outright, hypervisible examples except
for people doing work in their corners.
Teaching in classrooms with the door closed.
Someone else might not be doing the same
type of critical teaching and engagement.
And if I walked into classroom spaces, I had
conversations with colleagues, I listened,
and what I heard was we want
to learn how to do this work
with each other but we just don't know how to.
So that's part of an unwavering
commitment to doing the work.
It is listening to where we are in terms
of our thinking and our disposition
and it's pushing ourselves
and each other to do better.
So we did that work and we continue
to do that work here, and we name it.
We name it equity.
We name is justice.
We name it engagement.
And we name it transformative education.
And if we can't do that work with each other,
my concern becomes then what are we doing
in classroom spaces with
kids, with young adults?
So that's a long way of saying
we have to be able
to ask ourselves some really hard
questions about our commitment.
We have to also ask ourselves about
our views of young people and kids.
I think we have to start by understanding
that they are brilliant and amazing already
and that we are invited into their lives
to further that brilliance and amazingness.
And if we could do that with
kids and young folks,
then we have a commitment to
doing it with ourselves too.
>> Thank you so much.
Adrienne, I have a couple of questions
here that I think are directed to you.
The first is what besides letters
and notes are part of the collection?
And also specifically as a follow up, could
you please discuss materials in the collection
that relate to Rosa Parks' work
with women such as Recy Taylor?
>> Yes, well the collection in terms-- is
varied in terms of manuscript material.
We have fragmentary drafts
of her personal writings.
We have personal letters.
We have family correspondence.
We also have-- in the category
still of manuscripts--
printed material, political
brochures, and flyers.
We also have a collection of labor buttons
and political buttons from the 1930's 40's
that we include in the exhibition.
Variety of photographs as well as albums
and posters and original drawings.
And you can see much of the
Rosa Parks collection online.
We were able to digitize it again through the
generosity of the Howard G. Buffett Foundation
and with the consent of the Rosa and Raymond
Parks Institute gave us copyright permission
to post the materials online.
You can see that online through
the Rosa Parks papers link.
You can find that if you go to the
library's main webpage, www.loc.gov and click
on the digital collections link and then
look under R for Rosa Parks' papers.
Then we also have, as you could see through
the presentation, we have examples of honors
and awards which include the Presidential Medal
of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal.
And we have books, the centerpiece of
which I would say is the family bible
that includes some genealogical notes.
And then we have books that she collected--
over 40-- that reflect her diverse interest.
And so it's a mixed-- definitely
a mixed media collection.
We have some photographic albums.
I should say photographic records.
And we have videotape recordings.
Just a variety of different materials.
>> Thank you so much, Adrienne.
>> And then in terms of, what
was the other question about--
>> Women's materials.
>> Oh the women's material.
We don't-- now on Recy Taylor, we don't have, we
don't have a lot on her activism with the NAACP
but we do have-- but her personal papers were
split between the materials that came through--
to the Library of Congress through the
Howard G. Buffett Foundation and then
in 1976 she gave a collection of more
public papers to Wayne State University
which reflects her activism
at Highlander Folk School,
some materials with the NAACP
and other organizations.
And you can find [inaudible] online for
that through Wayne State University.
But we are fortunate to have
the records of the NAACP.
The Library of Congress has been the
official repository for the NAACP since 1964
and so the item that we have
in the exhibit that relates
to Recy Taylor was taken from the NAACP records.
And we also have some other
materials that illuminate Parks' work
with the NAACP in the NAACP records.
>> Great. Thank you so much Adrienne.
Again, it's just incredible how many resources
we have available through the library.
And I want to make a quick shout out too.
Adrienne and I worked together in the past
on programming related to another exhibition
that she curated, "The Civil Rights Act
of 1964: A Long Struggle for Freedom"
and that is another exhibition available
online through the library's website
that I would really encourage you to look at.
And I just want to quickly get to two
more questions before we end for today.
Amy asked if there were any
selective resources curated
in an online format for our K-2 learners.
And Cheryl, my colleague, had actually had a
great suggestion that I think she already put
in the chat but one of our Teaching with Primary
Sources Program partners KidCitizen has a
terrific offering called "Rosa Parks:
A Proud Daughter" so that's one
that I would definitely check out.
And others might have others to put in the chat.
And then Darlene asks, and I will
put this to Valerie and to Andrea
in case they have a recommendation, is
there are high interest biography that any
of you would recommend for
middle school students?
Valerie, did you have one?
>> I'm sitting here thinking.
I'm going to have to get back to you.
I can't remember--
>> Yeah.
>> the name but there is some text--
there is text that I am aware of and I've
actually read myself that are available.
I just can't really think of
it off the top of my head.
>> Yeah. And Andrea, I don't know if you have
a suggestion or not but again I'm sure our--
I'm sure that our colleagues and
participants have many suggestions
that they will also throw in the chat.
But anything that comes to mind for you?
>> No, most of my books were
very young and then college age,
so I don't have a suggestion for you.
>> I may actually get this title wrong but
there is a book that I really connected with
and have recommended to students,
"Warriors Don't Cry" and it's one
of the Little Rock nine sharing her experiences
as a memoir and that was extremely powerful.
Well I think that we are just
about 3 o'clock on the dot.
And again I just want to thank all
of you for participating today.
This was just incredible and I thank our
panelists for their expertise, for their time,
and for the incredible thought they're
putting into these important issues relating
to Rosa Parks and her legacy today.
I'd like to end with a quote actually from
one of our participants I believe who wrote,
"I think sharing materials from a
person's life that correlate with the age
of students we teach inspires
students to want to learn
as they realize how real people
struggle and overcome problems".
So thank you all so much and we hope
that you'll complete the survey.
And again, if you would like a certificate,
if you could please submit that
to me in the next 48 hours.
Thank you.