‘Giving Students the History They Need’

Though nineteen states have passed laws or imposed rules to restrict how public school teachers discuss race, racism, or other subjects deemed  “divisive” in their classrooms, many educators are pushing back on these boundaries and are using every tool at their disposal to help students understand U.S. history and social justice movements.

In fact, more than 13,000 teachers in forty-seven states are currently teaching The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks,  young readers edition, an adaptation of Jeanne Theoharis’s award-winning 2013 deconstruction of the “national fable” that reduces Parks to a tired, middle-aged woman who simply took a seat on a bus and inadvertently started a movement.