Every year my students read works written by great authors and poets. The work is usually fit for the times were living in. This year, my principal placed a book I saw many times in my hand,

Here, this is for your class.

I don’t think she was thinking how serious I would take this small token of knowledge passed down to me so quickly. She was simply cleaning out the library and a few books needed a new home. She placed in my hand, Rosa Parks autobiography. Which I finished reading and placed it instantly on my syllabus for the fourth grade this year.

Below I am sharing note I made while reading the book:

Reading Rosa Parks: My Story (written with Jim Haskins)

In 1954 Black people were very happy for the Black vs. Board of education ruling. Finally, it was said, separate education couldn’t be equal. Page 101 reads, “…we all waited to see what would happen next. The next question for the Supreme Court to decide was how to go about desegregating the schools.”

Rosa Parks went to a workshop called “Racial Desegregation: Implementing the Supreme Court Decision” at Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tennessee. There she met with likeminded individuals to discuss ways to implement the law. This was in the summer of 1955. It’s 2023 and teachers are still taking classes on ways to implement the law- which isn’t a law anymore. It’s been overturned this year. But classes are still given to American teachers so Americans can learn how to be inclusive.