uh carolyn is a caregiver okay uh so she loves people doesn't matter what what kind how old how young whatever so with mrs parks whenever the opportunity for her to care for her she was ready and she would go there and you know comb her hair and just read to her so she was very affectionate as she got frail but carolyn always was there for mother parks she was down there every day and every time she went to the hospital carolyn was there anything that happened carolyn had to be called in they couldn't do anything without her presence and when she come to detroit she would first person she's going to call first person they're going to contact even the persons who are in charge of rosa parks activities they're going to call carolyn green because carolyn took care of her when she lived here and when she whenever she would come to detroit she's not gonna she's not gonna leave here without being with carolyn for a few days i felt like she felt caroline was more daughter she was very close to mrs parks very very close she had been and remained i think very present in rosa parks's life kind of throughout all of those decades even to the end at the very end of rosa parks life she was quite sick and carolyn green certainly was very close to parks through that whole period [Music] my life with rosie an exploration of carolyn williams and greene's quest to preserve the public service legacy of rosa parks [Music] activism is a family business you can say that's in carolyn williamson green and rosa mccully parks jeans it started with sylvester edwards rose's grandfather and carolyn's great grandfather who was born to a slave and plantation owner in pine level alabama [Music] [Music] his early years were filled with abuse and although he would become free he would never forget those times edwards constantly taught his family to face injustice head-on fanny and leona were sisters and fanny edwards married howard williamson thomas edwards williamson carolyn's father was born in pine level alabama in 1913 the same year as rosa they grew up together under the watchful eye of their grandfather who defied white and black convention of the south by insisting that whites call him by his last name and refusing to address whites by mr or miss [Music] so grandma fanny took care of the children while she was gone they say both of them stayed in in uh in a housing project and you could go out of one my grandmother's door you could go out her back door and be right at ain't lee's door rosa parks would always be with hannie mae fannie mae and my anian they just well and sebastian my dad would always be together many of rosie's relatives would migrate to detroit including her brother sylvester and cousins thomas and annie well him and my mother had moved to detroit with and they stayed in a rooming house which was my godmother and then he got called into the service during that time my mother's my mother's sister her husband worked on the railroad so they would come here one year and then and stay a month and the next year we would go south and stay a month so every time we go south we would always see her during carolyn's early visits to the south she would not only see rosie but she would experience first-hand legal segregation since rosie did not have children of her own it isn't a surprise that she would develop strong relationships with younger family members including carolyn i was going to school on the same bus line like it would be to get to her house and sometime i would get off and i would go visit them i would tell my mom i said i'm gonna go visit them for an hour so this particular day i went over there and she was making a skirt and i said oh it's so pretty and so she said she started measuring me and then she said oh yes your head was all right then she said come back tomorrow and when i came back i had a skirt it was a pleated skirt and it was just beautiful to me so that's one of my fondest memories and how she would you know then she would always stop by and come over all the time carolyn would start serving her local community in detroit at a very young age and through her early involvement she'd develop relationships that would span over 40 years i would say about 9 89 i would go to store for the seniors i would go help them do whatever they needed help with i even did babysitting and all this was with no pay the babysitting when they came to me and i had a girlfriend and we would always babysit together we met in kindergarten and we would after we uh babysit we never had any money so to me that was community service i did everything everything i you know that older people would ask me to do from run to the store or go pick this up or take this down to miss someone else's house you know okay miss carolyn green has probably known me longer than i've known her carolyn and i grew up together on the northeast side of detroit michigan and we grew up in the same neighborhood attended the same church from little kids i was born in in the neighborhood we call it davidson the northeast side of detroit so we i think we may have attended different schools but we come from a background where the african-american family at that time in the 50s the parents saw to the kids being cared for loved and disciplined so we grew up in the same era so i guess we could say carolyn i've been knowing her good 40 years in and out so i can say over 40 years of knowing carolyn i've known her for approximately 25 years we've been involved in several ministries together at our church i have known carolyn over 50 years my daughter and her youngest sister were classmates and we lived in the same neighborhood and we also belong to the same church when we developed a more intimate relationship would probably be when i started teaching sunday school and i remember dale being in my teenage class her youngest son and then i also talked to grandkids in sunday school and so carolyn and i developed a really close relationship because at one point she was picking my nephew up from school so we've really known each other all of our lives detroit the northeast side of detroit was an interesting interesting part of the city because it had all black entrepreneurs there practically every store or business or beauty shop gas stations were all owned by blacks at that time even the supermarket so we all knew each other because we freaking all the same places and they were in the familiar we were comfortable because they were owned by people like us after her mother had expired she had a caretaker and i was looking for a caretaker to help assist us with taking care of my mother and she recommended this lady and it worked out very very well and she was with us until my mother had expired we've had a friendship we're in groups together we're in the mission together we work at the police station together we do quilting together we travel together we work with the community cup in the community together so we have close contact they moved to detroit where her brother and cousins are living in 1957 and they moved there basically because in some sense they're forced to um she loses her job five weeks into the boycott her husband is forced to give up his job shortly thereafter so they spend most of the boycott year without steady work and even after the boycott's successful end they still can't find steady work and they're still getting death threats credible death threats later on when rosa parks and ain't lee they came to stay with uh with us afterwards when they when they came here they stayed with us then i could hear them talking about how she was getting had got threats on her life that i mean they was just terrified and that's why they had to move and move quickly out of there so she becomes that as in the in the kind of words of the new york times obituary the accidental matriarch of the civil rights movement overwhelmingly she's both honored and shrunk in my opinion in terms of what's being honored who's being honored she's described with words like quiet humble not angry soft-spoken now obviously some pieces say she has a bigger political life than this but it still kind of traps her in this kind of meek demure so she's an naacp secretary so not getting at the full sense of the kind of um what it took i mean who she was which was a kind of lifelong rebel what it took to be a lifelong rebel right um [Music] and that starts decades before her historic bus stand and will continue for decades after her bus stand you know rosa parks was reserved but she was fierce so i think it's it's both to complicate all the things we know about her um and to see and again the title of my book is taken from a quote from her she describes having a life history of being rebellious that begins as a child and that continues to her death but i think it is a much more comfortable and convenient narrative to treat her as this sort of meek seamstress that starts the civil rights movement that sort of um is glorious but then ends in 1964 and 1965 and to sort of use it to feel good about ourselves which i think is part of how her story gets used um it both celebrates her but it mostly celebrates america and i think we saw that in 2005 when she died i think we saw that again in 2013 when they put the statue of her in the in the capitol um rosa parks to the end of her life insisted the struggle was not over that there was much more work to be done that racism was still alive and well and systematic in the united states and yet i think too often the way her story is told it is used to put the movement in the past and to make us feel like we had a problem and we fixed it so in august of 1957 this is eight months after the boycott ends they leave montgomery for detroit and most of the time when you see that in biographies of rosa parks it's like the last sentence it makes it seem like it's the happy ending it's the vacation home and yet she describes detroit as the promised land that wasn't they moved to detroit because her cousins are there because her brother is there so they have family and that is certainly a joy and while certain public signs of segregation are thankfully gone sort of the systems of school and housing segregation of job discrimination of police abuse that she thought she'd left in montgomery she finds again in detroit and so she talks about it is that not seeing not too much difference that's her quote between what she leaves in montgomery and what she finds in detroit so she will set about alongside sort of activists in detroit sort of to challenge the racism of the jim crow north when rosie moved her activism to the city of detroit carolyn would become one of the relatives she'd rely on if she was going out of town she would call to let me know where she was at or who i can get in touch with they would know if anything ever happened and why she chose me i don't you know the connection there but because she would always say oh yeah you're edwards but i don't know if that's the reason why but it was always a close connection carolyn would soon be attending events for her cousin it's not so much of me traveling with her i would do it for her she used me to go represent her i learned how important it was for us to know about our black history and how important it was to stand up for what you think is right so that was one of the main things i learned from that when you think you're right you're right for too long we thought of the civil rights movement as predominantly happening in the south because the sort of problem of race was located in the south and i think that is a gross distortion both of what the race problem in the united states is which is a national problem but also of the sort of struggles people were raging outside of the south from new york to detroit to l.a to milwaukee and i think in the past 15 years we've begun to see books getting published that return that other part of the civil rights movement to the narrative and really challenge this idea that that again the south is the problem one of the things i think we forget is lots of public institutions are segregated in places like detroit hospitals were segregated in detroit until the 1964 civil rights act desegregates hospitals in detroit i think we don't tend to think about that um schools are segregated now that doesn't mean that there's a law saying black children must go to black schools how it works in places like detroit is schools are zoned in particular ways to protect schools serving predominantly white students right and to if we're thinking about kind of what's happening um part of what you see from sort of world war ii on is increasing numbers of african americans migrating from the south uh to the north and so you're seeing lots and lots of black people coming to cities like detroit so the parks family is part of a larger migration story um but you have in cities like detroit very fierce housing segregation so lots of like neighborhoods that black people move into and then certain neighborhoods getting more and more crowded schools in those neighborhoods getting more and more crowded and and the city readjusting school lines to keep certain neighborhoods um those schools segregated um and to uh city services are distributed inequitably right so in all sorts of ways um we see what we may call state-sponsored uh inequality and segregation in places like detroit so rosa parks attends the signing of the voting rights act um in 1965. um lyndon johnson signs the voting rights act and i think in many kind of traditional narratives of the movement then that's the you know like look we've we've done it um civil rights act of 64 voting rights act right this is the kind of capstone and i think what seeing rosa parks continuing on after 65 is seeing all of the things yet undone and and again troubling that idea that certainly these were very important milestones and rosa parks had been working for decades by this point around issues of um of voting but that this is not the end this was sort of key beginning important steps but there were so many things still undone right issues of law enforcement and police brutality issues of still of school segregation of curriculum issues of economic justice and continuing sort of job access and exclusion issues of um black political power um issues of u.s and kind of global justice and you inform us foreign policy right so all of those things she still saw as sort of key issues issues that she'd been concerned about for decades at that point as well and and issues that were yet to be resolved and so i think seeing her work in detroit in the 60s and the 70s and 80s and the 90s reminds us how much more work there was to do it reminds us how committed she was to sort of young people and it makes again i think the way that rosa parks story is told is it puts it in the past um the far past uh she would tell she would say that sometimes people would ask her if she knew harriet tubman right which i think suggests i was the hero and lived in a different century but i think it suggests the way that the civil rights movement was being cordoned off as like the distant past and i think what seeing rosa parks work in those decades reveals is how it was not a distant struggle one of my favorite stories about rosa parks was how she would go to these very kind of iconic black power things and she would sit and she would do some sort of sewing some sort of handwork or crocheting well the project that i guess we're most proud of is the one that the quilt that we made that is shown behind um maya angelou when she was speaking at the music hall that is the quilt that our group made there's a kind of philosophy of quilting right quilting is is is collective much of quilting is collective each year when we have our quilting show we hang this quilt and it's pointing to the north star and maya angelou asked to have that when she came to the orchestra hall in detroit to do her concert so i use it in the book to talk as a metaphor for black power because i saw it as an interesting way to think about how you add a new patch to an existing sort of quilt of protest and to sort of think about somebody like rosa parks who'd been active for decades at this point um and who who didn't sort of see black powers being so very different from other things because so many of the strands of black power were strands that were already in the quilt of black protest before self-defense independent by political power economic justice criminal justice right all of these things that sometimes we associate with black power are there in things that rosa parks had worked on for years this is one of the things we try to keep alive is the history of quilting to let you know it's a special art that everybody was given a gift and this is what we want to bring out the best in them but also how you come and you help other people so you you come and you if somebody's working on a quilt then you sew their quilt and that philosophy right and so that image of sort of her listening to stokely carmichael or whoever at the gary convention or the black power convention in philly but she's sitting there so she's herself right that she and that complicated self right so she is still you know she wants to be busy she wants to have her hands busy right in a kind of you know um but she's also there with the you know kind of this country's kind of most fearless radicals right and so there's something very interesting about that and i think it's sort of i think helped people just kind of imagine her in those moments so whenever we go and put on a performance or an activity we always take that quilt pointing to the north star to let people know and we also take other a couple other quilts a quilt that we made and we let all the children sign a piece of cloth they put their names on there and we made this quilt for the head start program and it's a queen size quilt and everybody's name and the year is on there and those are the two quilts that we show because we want to do our community involvement rosa parks was reserved right she was soft-spoken but she was also fierce one interesting thing again if we go back to that most iconic moment of when she makes her stand on the bus she actually questions the officers she actually says to the officers right she speaks back she says why do you push us around when they are arresting her right so she's not meek in that moment at all right she's not quiet in that moment at all um and so i think the danger of the mythology the danger of how she has been held up is that it both misses what it actually took but it also i think implicitly then says this is the this is the way to be right this is the good way to be and it demonizes people who are angry who are loud who are even though rosa parks was angry even though she did speak back even though um she saw herself as a rebel right but it i think it it is meant to the way that she i think sometimes gets honored implicitly makes it seem like the way people protest today is not the right way and and that you have to be meek and quiet and i think that's very dangerous activism as a family business continued when carolyn was laid off when i started to volunteer for the detroit police department they had many stations it was eleven many three eleven many four and they was like sub from the main headquarters in that district and i i worked for general motors i was a troubleshooter there and high seniority was waiting to go for another job they was closing the plant so high seniority knew you was going to be replaced but they didn't they had to make room for you in other plants and that you had an option you could volunteer or you could go down there and just sit and watch movies all day it was downtown detroit and i decided to volunteer so someone in the union say do you think you would like to go to the police station and say where is the dad he said seven and guy that's oh that's right by my house yes so i went there and he was a drug officer officer jones and later on i found out he was a ministry too but he was a drug officer and he would go away and find different how different drugs look and then he would go to elementary schools and junior high or intermediate and you know talk with the children and so they could see how the drugs look so they wouldn't be exposed to taking drugs and sometimes i went with him and it was just very interesting the more i got into it the heavier it got then when i went back to work which was maybe about a year and a half later when i went back to work i continued to get him to keep involved with the police department that was 85 1985 it became about 27 years continuing her cousin's love for youth carolyn would start a grassroots movement community united for progress we also work together in a community organization called community united for progress the acronym is cup we started cup in 1998. we got the idea to have us a program for children in the summer because the parents work and they all needed babysitters nobody had any money we knew children getting out of school had nowhere to go so it was like an after-school program it was called a summer camp so we get together and we decide on the program everything we was going to have in the program teaching them dance music as well as getting them involved in academics but we didn't have any money no place to have it or anything well one of the one of our friends at the church who had did um we knew like we would go to different churches and and just do volunteer work he said well i have a building across the street and that's how it started we started there we got lunches from the city the church the different churches in the neighborhood would give us state buses to take children to different events they went on a field trip every week they would take them fishing take the children to zoo we took them over in canada to the walls museum we took them to the black cowboy we exposed them to everything we went down took them downtown a lot of them hadn't even seen the museums downtown and we just took them everywhere with no money ourselves no grant but we always got the money to take them to all these places it was a six-week program that was monitored and like i said they had brought people in from the government to serve the children and various retired teachers came in and support and all of this was done with no money you know so um very little resources and everything but we had people that came in and volunteered and people that made donations because carolyn and other women went out and let them know that what they were doing in order to help these students uh have a safe summer and a productive summer we plan activities from learning how to sing which we can't sing but we learned through playing the music the radios and different things we had artists to come in the fbi came in oh we we went out big we asked for the fbi to come in to speak to our children to teach them perhaps maybe they would like to be an fbi we would call them the police the nurses doctors any role and what i really loved what we did we taught our kids how to do mouth-to-mouth we even taught them how to cook they did exercising classes we walked to the park and one of the parks we chose to walk to we got the idea of fixing the park up it was the first it was the first handicap park in the city of detroit we adopted that butler park now that's a park that was lost in our city and we adopted that park and bought it up to beautification and we started on that project the city put money in we raised money we did bricks we did everything for for this park so we did a lot for the seniors too as little as we did for the the children we kind of combined together and the seniors began to love the children the children began to love the seniors so it was a good experience very good experience so it's it's wonderful the years we've had to see how we both have matured and grown and touched so many children lives and that makes a difference when a child is touched by an adult that loves them truly loves them that makes their child dream and receive the opportunities they're going to receive yes so we keep involved and abreast of things that's going on in the community and also pass along vital information to the police department so that they would know the concerns that we had in the community we was on cert and that was the first community emergency response team in the city of detroit we also work within the community giving out thanksgiving baskets and putting together things of that nature helping the needy everything we've done somebody else have picked it up i've noticed that and they're doing the same thing well when i first saw the bus at henry ford it was just awesome to see the original bus that rosa parks was arrested in sat in an alabama field for 30 years to restore the bus to its original condition the henry ford museum received 205 thousand dollars in funding through the save america's treasures program the bus is permanently on exhibit at the henry ford museum well because it we know it hasn't died it lives on and then everyone will learn the truth of what high really existed and how everything happened because it's right here for them to see it's the education that helps everyone to realize what really happens if they ask me what to add to this exhibit it would be a statue of rosa parks and i think that would finish the exhibit and this is the actual seat rosa park said man the one you sitting there yeah cause remember the guy next to her he got up and left he was scared yeah he was scaring you it's a lot of history right here a lot of history because i remember i was little on the bus with her myself down in montgomery and i was little i think for me the legacy um lives because i know that rosie perks is uh an activist but also look at her as an educator i think she educated an entire generation of people to stand up for themselves and to advocate for themselves and for me as an educator that's what i empower my students to do i make sure that they look at education as something that's valuable because they've decided that it's valuable and not because i want them to and i think that that is the way i manifest her legacy and it's amazing the collective gathering of everyone in the city that rode the bus came together to stay made the decision stay off the bus and after a year later a man a year later the bus was out of business they started begging the people please come back and ride back and the bus bus eventually went out of business the whole bus system and i wish that spirit of support could manifest in our communities now and i was the biggest support of one another in that way and and during that time children played a big part in that because the flyers would have never got out if the children hadn't took them but they was a part of the civil rights movement too it takes everybody i mean you fight for the human race it's not just for a black race white race it's the human race and rosa lord cheering sausage she loved kids yes she loved this she loved her family she never had kids at home your daughter family and she wanted to make sure you knew about your history oh yeah and and we say rosie or aunt rosie because that's what we was taught because we couldn't say rosa just plain roses so you had to put a title on there so we see you it was it's charlie rose yeah rosie or either auntie rosie so she to the end of her life is saying the struggle's not over racial injustice is still kind of endemic in this country we have a lot more work to do don't say the struggle's over right and so it seems like one of the dangerous ways her legacy is often taken up publicly and nationally is this idea that it is over i think there's a seduction right i mean rosa parks has been honored in ways almost unprecedented for for kind of um in terms of any american woman in terms of almost any american in any century right i mean she's gotten so many awards um but i think those awards are often about making america feel good about itself and so i think one of our responsibilities not just her families but those of us who care about her legacy is to sort of say this award is only meaningful if it's about recommitting to the struggle if it's it's only meaningful if we see how much more work we have to do in terms of criminal justice economic justice just foreign policy right that these are the things that she believes in and is working on over her life and so if we're really going to honor her it's not about a statue it's about a kind of continued resolve and understanding that you have to do things over and over and over like she did and having that same kind of tenacity carolyn i think as long as they continue to get because very often they they call the church or call her and somebody wants to do uh have some kind of activity or event and they call her to represent and she always goes and i think as long as she is alive and living and well she'll she'll go because she's a person who will put down whatever she's doing if it's something important for a cause she's going to take do that carolyn how you could tell of her love and legacy and just how much she was into mrs parks i know one time she invited several of us that's what was an honor that she invited several of us to go to the dia we went to many events angela bassett cicely tyson whenever she would come in town they would want to see mrs parks carolyn would invite maybe 10 to 12 of us that these people would always be invited we would get to meet miss parks and the actresses these famous people carolyn was always freely letting us be involved in the love of this woman of who she was and what she meant to us and to the world so she's going to live on and on just like you know sojourner truth and all these that are gone because her grandkids and great-great-great-grands have the blood flowing but i know that if she had anything to do with it her legacy and would go on but and i think she would do whatever is necessary as long as she is alive she would do whatever is necessary to keep rosa's life just a remembrance of rosa and what she really did i know i know that she would as she could [Music] but i just hope that somebody would pick up the ball and find out and get some knowledge because it's because of lack of knowledge that uh uh that she's not getting the what she needs for this generation it's because they don't know and i just hope that somebody would grab what she had what carolyn has for rosa parks you know the hearts it's one thing to go to activities and to go to fun these but she had a heart she loved rosa parks and rosa parks loved carolyn you know and i just hoped that one of the grandkids would would pick that up the myth is so powerful it is so powerful i think the biggest challenge with rosa parks is she is beloved but she is beloved in a way that is very dangerous for all the things that she cared about um and so i think just it's like you know it's like sisyphus right it's like you constantly have to kind of say over and over and over um it is she is clearly worthy of these national honors but but in order to really honor her you have to sort of really understand what her legacy is and really understand what she stood for and and i think that's the challenge so mary frances berry said to me um last year she said if they knew what we know about her she would have no statue and i think that's partly that that might be true right like are you willing to have a statue for someone who believed in welfare rights who believed in reparations who believed that we had a deeply unjust criminal justice system who believed that american foreign policy was unjust if you are and certainly that is worthy of honor but you have to be willing to honor what she actually was um and not honor some sort of distorted caricature of who she was i i believe carolyn has faced some time many at things of adversity but what she has a determination so when you have determination adversity does not become a problem you just find another way to go around so she had a good way of doing that and for instance within our church say for instance she's preparing a menu for a funeral for family and perhaps the caterer didn't come through with the proper items keller would know how to makeshift and make something out of a meal with less than what she would have to pay for the church so she was able to always prepare a meal or something to make that whole situation come out real leveled so that was her heart of like i said when it was a mess up she was good to fix it and then the same thing with uh in the community when we would run into like maybe perhaps not enough items to go in thanksgiving baskets that we would always try to have enough for everybody sometimes what she would do is actually go home and get some items to make up that basket so that family wouldn't be left out when carolyn and i uh the bus company that was supposed to take us somehow failed to come through here we are packed all of our kids are ready and i said okay what are we going to do so what we did is pray now both of us believe in prayer we start praying said lord something got to happen something is going to come through i think it was both of us that came up with the same idea at the same time we thought of art blackwell art blackwell was a commissioner in holland park a very big a man of responsibility integrity he was very important to detroit so we called him and told him what happened do you know that gentleman through his love for carolyn and me because of our integrity what we had been doing he sent a 57 passenger beautiful green another green and black bus that bus was sharp and that he didn't charge us he said that's on me took us to canada all day event and brought us back home now you tell me why you just don't do what you do you're doing it for the right reasons things gonna work out but i know in cup specifically she went out along with other women to get programming together you know determining exactly what is needed for to meet the kids meet the kids children's needs they had brought people in from the government to serve the children and various retired teachers came in and support and all of this was done with no money you know so very little resources and everything but we had people that came in and volunteered and people that made donations because carolyn and other women went out to the various stores or meet with government officials in the city to let them know exactly what they're doing and asking them for any funding that they can contribute or any resources that they may have available that would make the program strong in the community so carolyn was deeply involved in that but god says my people perish for lack of knowledge and this her legacy rosa parks legacy will perish if our children aren't made knowledgeable of what she actually did and not just the actor staying in the sitting in her seat but what the the the the ramifications of that people are talking about the campaign to put women on the 20 or the 10 as being about 100 years of women's suffrage as if suffrage is not an issue today um and that clearly we've seen all of this voter disfranchisement both in the south but also in the midwest and that you know so i think the issue of the vote is still a a real issue and so i think to kind of be i think the danger of the putting rosa parks on the money is again the danger of saying this is done and over and all we have to do is then just put a woman on the 20. um as opposed to what we have to do is preserve and extend suffrage and the vote and um you know challenge these voter id laws challenge felon disfranchisement all of these things when i was invited to the white house for the congressional medal i think i think that was the first right there when they opened up the museum that was a good experience and and i got a chance to see air force one that's how they took her to montgomery and so um and i went on the air force base and i was with her there so that was a good experience the museum in alabama and congressional medal i think those are the two that stands out i certainly would hope that if nothing else we as a people we as a people when they would remember her for all that she did for us and but i'm a little afraid that as the years go on it's going to get her her her presence or just her what she what she contributed to this world will be forgotten and the reason why i say that is because people are not as caring about other people now and our children they don't even all they know is the name rosa parks and that she was on a bus and that she wouldn't give up her seat end of it and that's all i'm afraid that that is all in time unless people keep her alive and they they keep having uh uh rosa parks days and the things at school when they have to write uh essays and things about i just hope that the educational system and the teachers that are part of that i it is my hope that they would continue and not let it get old because i feel like i don't want to just make persons but i feel like martin luther king is kind of weighing down it's not when i was in school that was it you wanted to write about him and you want to know about him and i'm just afraid that that's going to happen with her and they're going to miss it and i don't see any rosa parks or or or or martin luther king's on the horizon i don't see anybody that's coming up i know a few names are thrown out there but the impact no it's not the same and i'm just afraid those kind of people and what they had to give is going to get lost but i'm just so afraid that what happens when the carolyn's you know are gone because you know we're all going we're not going to last forever we're not going to be here forever and i would hate to see um them not the younger generation the new generation not even realize what we had and can't even talk about it because nobody's keeping up not enough uh institutions are keeping it alive i'm probably wrong they probably are and i don't just don't know about it but that's that's what i would feel but i know that if she had anything to do with it her legacy and would go on but and i think she would do whatever is necessary as long as she is alive she would do whatever is necessary to keep rosa's life just a remembrance of rosa and what she really did i know i know that she would and she could so rosa parks had always kind of held out kind of her most hope for young people and in some sense really rejoiced in the kind of spirit and militancy of young people um so in the 1950s we see her starting the kind of youth branch of the naacp chapter um it was a small branch right most parents didn't want their kids having anything to do with it um and she is encouraging them to take more and more sort of direct stands against injustice if we fast forward to the 1960s we see a kind of growing black power movement in detroit she is taking part in it she is supportive of it um she is showing up for things she is using her position and her name to to help in any way she can over and over she she is willing to join with and help kind of new movements and i think that's a real model for sort of how middle-aged people elders can support movements today right which is i think we sometimes see older people believing they know best telling young people that they're doing it the wrong way and i think rosa parks offers a very different way into kind of seeing um both how much young people appreciate right uh elders in the struggle and also how important a role middle age and older people have to play but not as the kind of controlling voice learning how rosie's detroit relatives played a key role in her activism is always the missing link in the story about rosa parks so one of the challenges in doing the book was how to tell the second half of her story how to tell the detroit half because even though there were many people who'd interviewed rosa parks who'd done oral histories with rosa parks they so focused on montgomery and so one of the things that i was trying to do was to sort of fill out that second half um and one of the ways i did that was doing a lot of interviews and oral histories myself and and to try to get at what she was doing in detroit and um and one of my friends in detroit um had recommended talking to two of rosa parks's cousins and so that's how i reached out to carolyn green um both to fill out kind of her family and personal story but also to try to paint a picture what i was trying to do is paint a picture of what life was like in detroit kind of what her work was like and what her community life was from the vantage point of her family and so that was why i interviewed a number of her cousins including carolyn green carolyn believes that only one thing will solve the misrepresentation of her cousin it's the ten year of her rosa parks death then it's the 60th year of the boycott and it's also the 70th year of the united nations so i think they're going to be doing things together and i've been invited already to a couple of things you know i think teaching children to do community service then they make your community even better well they have to be educated that's one of the main things to be educated the need to um really know about their black history their heritage and not just for blacks whites but for the whole human race i think everyone should do community service to better their communities and the better the world and rosa parks i never forget she would read a book 1001 things all blacks would know should know and if you read a paragraph she could pick it up and the book was i know it was that but if you could read a paragraph she could pick it up and tell that's just how she had studied that book and so i read quite a bit of that book so it was a lot and so it's really about the human race and that how we all tie in together and that's why she just didn't think people should be treated any different because we all won if i could give carolyn an award for what she's done for now and for the future i would select an award of humility it would say in honor of miss carolyn greene a servant with humility i would sum up carolyn as a sharer if it's any such word as a share i don't know if it's in the dictionary but they share her she's always there and she's always trying to help somebody she is a helper if you have a problem and you go to carolyn she's going to try to figure it out if she can't figure it out she'll find somebody else to help you i would say the miss carolyn green is kind and that's because she has done so much for so many for so long the word humility stands out because that means a person does a deed or task from their heart is not to receive any recognition about it you're not looking for the spotlight but what she does is to meet the need and humble means you just stand back and watch what god does i have seen nothing but her sharing her life with people i mean with children with whatever walks she shares and i'm not talking about just sharing uh uh uh tangible things or or monies or finances or or or clothing i'm talking about a share of everything she has a heart to share and i would say more than anything her just information she can hear of something happening 10 miles away and will still tell somebody without a car that's it's over here they're giving away this for people who don't have and the person has no way of even getting there but because she wants everybody to know that there's something for you there's some over here you you qualify for this you qualify for that you got got to get there well i don't have a car i'll pick you up she will pick you up and carry over to get some or if you can't go and even get it i've seen her come back with loads of things and it's like we're going to pass this out of the church we're going to pass this out she shares everything she get she has and a lot of people are sharers of things but share of information and share of you of of your heart she's like been there for you for people and good times and bad she's been there when my dad died she was when i heard my brother it passed i was helping her get ready for a funeral at the church and she embraced me and just held me [Music] um just this really kind person just really special she's a caregiver she's and she has such a gentle spirit and she's also a prayer warrior and when people are troubled they go to carol and else i'll send them to her because she is a prayer warrior and it's a wonderful thing to have someone that's not judgmental she's not judgmental she will not rest until everybody she knows knows what's happening what's out here it's like this is this is out here you don't know it's available and they should know this and it's very important to her that people are knowledgeable whatever she knows she's going to share it she doesn't keep anything to herself i that's the word i would give her i could tell you she's a caretaker i could tell you that she's a sincere wonderful kind person all that but i like the most because she shares what she has she never tells me no whenever i say carolyn we need to do this we need to do that and she's always like okay miss rick and so as a result because she pours into you so much you want to do things for her and so because she poured so much into me i was willing to pour into her family and we are more like family she's she's very kind and she's very gentle she's always telling it's going to be all right [Music] so that's what i give her i think that would be the greatest thing to give her amongst all of the awards she's received and that would help her kids that would help her them to show that humility came from the legacy of mrs parks because that lady had to have that too for what she went through she was humble i'm not sure what all of humanitarian involves i'm not sure just with the criteria what how you would describe humanitarian but i would say a human sharing themselves that would be my description of a humanitarian i don't and she here again i'm going back on sharing but all i can think of was gary is how much she shares of her life and i would say a humanitarian award or if there's such thing as a great person award i don't know but i know that she shares her life with human humanity [Music] thank you for watching my life with rosie on klcs my name is angela williamson the filmmaker and your host for tonight's special screening we are filming this special episode of everybody at the rosa parks memorial building in san bernardino one of the many questions i'm asked is why did i produce this documentary about rosa parks well my curiosity started when i first met rosa parks in april of 1998. up until i met her my husband who is rosa parks cousin and the associate producer on the film and his aunts told me she attended all her cousin's weddings and special events but i really didn't believe that and why would i not in my lifetime would i believe that a civil rights legend would attend my bridal shower well i was very very wrong not only would she come to my bridal shower but she would also give me one of my most treasured gifts an autographed book welcoming me to the family and she even played bridal shower games the mother of the civil rights movement she also came to our wedding where the entire wedding party stopped and stared in awe she was definitely one of our most esteemed wedding guests in 2015 after my father-in-law thomas williamson died i began production on my life with rosie it was because i needed to document my son's legacy and i realized that the many stories that i heard especially from on carolyn weren't the stories i heard in my history books i felt rosa parks legacy needed to be told from the williamson side of the family it was my personal mission for people to know the real rosa parks like her family knew her i wanted to go beyond what i learned in the history books one of my favorite parts of the documentary is when four generations of rosa parks family is on the original bus at the henry ford museum in dearborn michigan i was completely shocked when i found out that the original bus was abandoned in a field for over 30 years it's a miracle that bus was even found most importantly this scene helps us learn the importance of our legacy and why it's so important to our family it's about making sure the next generation of williamsons keeps moving cousin rosie's legacy forward the documentary you watch tonight is really the second version of my life with rosie the first version was created for educators and it included discussion prompts at the end of each segment to generate classroom discussion i wanted this documentary to be more than just a film i wanted it to educate and inspire a new generation of activists just like cousin rosie did however when the documentary was finished in 2017 dr jean theo harris tom knutson kathleen flynn they all encouraged me to re-edit the documentary for the film festival circuit on december 10 2017 my life with rosie premiered at the culver city film festival and won best documentary this would be first of the many awards this documentary would receive in its two-year film festival run i would also write a book about my experience to bring the story of cousin rosie to the big screen and women who illuminate by kate butler books with all the wonderful opportunities happening around this film i never lost sight of its original goal to make sure that this is a resource in teaching ethnic studies originally i wanted this film as a resource in higher education and in high schools but with the re-edit i decided to modify the documentary for elementary school teachers and wrote a children's book to complement it my life with rosie a bond between cousins was released on amazon in june i have been so humbled with all the positive responses from the parenting magazines and websites and i love receiving the many photos from readers young and old from all races reading this book this book is more than a children's book it's a book that brings people together while teaching us to appreciate the differences in others my aunt carolyn said in the documentary that cousin rosie believed all people should be treated with respect and this is the legacy she not only left to her family but to all of us when she refused to give up her bus seat on december 1st 1955. our special wants to look more into why rosa parks legacy is still important in 2020 that's why we're filming at the rosa parks memorial building in san bernardino next to a statue of rosa parks our guest is eloise gomez reyes california assembly member from the 47th district she is responsible for keeping rosa parks legacy alive by working with organizations like the california department of transportation district 8 to get this beautiful statue built in the city of san bernardino stay tuned and come back to our special edition of everybody with angela williamson from los angeles this is klcs pbs welcome to everybody with angela williamson an innovation arts education and public affairs program everybody with angela williamson is made possible by viewers like you thank you and now your host dr angela williamson welcome back assemblymember reyes thank you so much for joining us thank you so much this is such a wonderful thing thank you for the invitation oh it's my pleasure you know i really wanted you here for this special because it took some time for this beautiful statue to actually be here in this building in san bernardino so i want you to tell us a little bit about that thank you thank you for doing this you're right this building was dedicated in 2008 and our rosa parks statue is not completed until 2018. that's a long time that passed in between it is it is and so tell us your role in making sure that we have the statue here well the san bernardino county black culture foundation worked really hard for seven years they were trying to raise the money to build this they knew it had to be done and once i became an assembly member in 2016 they called and said will the state help us we want to commission this statute and we need the money and we put it into the state's budget patrick jewett then completed it and here we are and patrick jewett is actual he's the sculptor for this beautiful statue here so we definitely want to recognize him because he did such a wonderful job but what's really made me just so proud that you are my assembly member person is that you didn't just raise funds for the statute you also did something else with a bill that you did in january of 2018. can you tell us a little bit about that and why you decided to do it of course thank you so much well we asked that we we dedicate the day to rosa parks i think it's so important for our children to know who rosa parks is they need to know whether they're african-american or not they need to know what a dynamic woman she was and what an important part of history she was if our young kids don't learn about people like rosa parks that's something that is missing in their lives and they will never be able to connect the dots and that's important especially right now in 2020 as we commemorate the 65th anniversary not only of rosa parks arrest but of the start of the montgomery bus boycott why do you think that's so important that she's here in our city san bernardino well we also have connections to family members like yourself and that's really important for for years i've been hearing about rosa parks and some people sometimes say well she was so tired from working that she sat down no she was tired of waiting and waiting for the civil rights to finally be given to to our brothers and sisters african-american brothers and sisters and that's that's what she was sick and tired of it wasn't that she was physically tired and maybe she was but it was because she was tired that it was taking so long for civil rights to be given and i love that because not a lot of people know that in that you know that and you support that in putting together that bill which was really interesting because i noticed that it was almost bipartisan you had both sides come together and why do you think that's so important when we recognize rosa parks when i asked for co-authors on the floor i think every one of my colleagues whether they were democrat republican or independent everybody wanted to be a co-author and that just goes to the importance of rosa parks and the civil rights movement to recognize our leader in that regard and everybody recognizes that i think that's one of those bipartisan issues that that is going to unite everybody we all want to know what the history is we want to know who those leaders are we want to know who made a difference in the future of everybody i mean as we're talking about rosa parks and the amazing things that she did to actually not only with giving not giving up her bus seat but i also think about you and the role that you've played in keeping our county together over this last year which has probably been a challenging year and i would love to get your thoughts about that as well too it's what keeps you going to be that strong force for our county i think that everybody has to have their role right we have some great leaders here in the inland empire in fact san bernardino county was the first county to declare racism a public health issue and that doesn't happen just overnight it happens because we have people who are committed are we have the the our faith-based community we have community-based organizations we have our grassroots people people want to get together and they want to declare something that should be declared and san bernardino county was the first to declare racism a public health issue as the assembly member i was so proud to be able to send a letter in support of this and most of my staff were part of this movement and i'm so proud of them as well but again it takes the entire community and then in the end the board of supervisors recognized that it was their constituents that were demanding not just asking they were demanding that racism be declared a public health issue and it was done and i'm very proud of the entire community for that and that's such a wonderful way to commemorate this special occasion that we're brought here to talk about that's right tonight wonderful wonderful well you talked a lot about you mentioned before how important it is for our children to learn about rosa parks and and i just i personally love that you know the true story of rosa parks but even our state is starting to to realize how important ethnic studies is so i want to change a little bit over and talk a little bit about the state making it an issue now to say we need ethnic studies and my question to you as our assembly member why do you think that's so important right now well first i want to give a shout out to my dear friend assembly member dr shirley weber who is the author of the bill she was a professor at in san diego for 30 plus years before she came to the state assembly and she was the one that championed ethnic studies as a requirement in college um ethnic studies is extremely important if we don't know the history of other ethnicities other races we lose out so much if we don't have the diversity we're going to lose out that's where that's where greatness comes from is diversity but if we don't know the richness of the cultures of other people then we lose out so i think that having ethnic studies as a requirement helps our students to to recognize the importance and it also it's like for my latino students i want them to recognize their culture they may not have been taught everything that they need to know for the african-american students i want them to know more about their culture these are important things and the only way that our students are going to learn is to have somebody teach them many of them learn at home through the parents the grandparents from church but not everybody does and i think it is important that that we all learn from each other the richness of each other's culture i had that question for you and i didn't even realize how personal it was for you and i've heard you speak a lot about just the rich history we have in san bernardino county so my question to you is if you are able to write some ethnic studies for us here in san bernardino county who do you think we should focus on oh there are so many so so many and i think if i begin to talk about anybody i'm going to miss everybody but certainly i want our students and i don't not i'm not saying just our african-american students i want all of our students to know who rosa parks is i want them to know her history of course we have the great leaders we have cesar chavez dolores huerta we have martin luther dr martin luther king jr those are the big ones but then there are others those who invented things and we don't know that it was from our own culture there's so much to to be taught to our children the requirement right now is for college students i think the next step is going to be our high school students jose medina the assembly member from riverside right close by was the author of that bill and it made it through but it didn't get the signature from the governor but next time it will because we do need to have ethnic studies not just in college but also in high school and i'm looking forward to that day as well and i love this because it looks like it's that's bipartisan too people are coming together for that and i think that's so important for people to see that right now don't you think absolutely i think that there are so many things that unite us uh oftentimes we look at the things that are how we're different but if we look at how the similarities that we have that's i think what's going to unite us i think most people want to know the richness of somebody's culture i think that's true of everybody uh when i have friends who are from pakistan for instance i want to know more about their culture and if it's religious culture i want to know more about my muslim brothers and sisters i want to know about my hindu brothers and sisters my buddhist brothers and sisters there's so much honestly that we can learn and as i said earlier i i think it provides this richness for each person we don't have to be experts and know all about all about it but i think the more that we know that the things that will that will unite us as we move forward because that's really what we need we need more of a united front as as a society there's so much so much that i think we will find all of our similarities not just because we're both women we're both women of color um there and i there's so much that i can learn from you the fact that you are related to the great rosa parks that just bring me brings me such great um joy and and pride honestly to be here with you in your program uh where you're honoring such a wonderful person in our not just for san bernardino but for the entire history of the united states i love it and you know some people have asked me they they ask well why san bernardino but i see san bernardino county i see us as trailblazers don't you think especially you talked about the racism bill so i mean you must be so proud to be representing this county i am i i often tell people up in sacramento i said there's there's so much to know about my community if you tell me about the negative things i will listen to you but i'm going to tell you 10 things that are positive about my community it's the people it's always going to i will always come back to the people for in early 60s we were the all-america city and i know that we're coming back to that point again my dear friend francis gries was one of those that fought to make sure that this was named the all-america city those are the kinds of leaders that we've had in our community those are the ones that i want my community to learn all about i love it so much now i have one more question for you before we end our wonderful conversation if you could look into the future 10 years from now where would you think we would be with everything that you are proposing your friends in the legislature are proposing right now where do you think we would be right now well where i want us to be is i want us to be in a society of inclusion and equity but then that brings us back to ie this is the inland empire right inclusion and equity my team works really hard and trying to figure out what is it that we stand for i mean i don't want to just be in office and just be there for the however however many years my community sends me back up to 12 years for term limits i want to be able to make a difference in the lives of of my constituents and as long as they feel that they are included and that in the end we do have equity then i will know that i will have succeeded i want all of our children to know that they belong wherever they want to be i know i want them to know that they belong if they want to be in the girl scouts and the boy scouts if they want to be a leader on the swim team wherever they want to be i want them to know that they belong there's nobody that belongs more than they do and as long as our children grow up feeling that i think that we will have succeeded and that's where i want all of our children to be i love that that is a perfect way for us to end tonight's special episode thank you so much for being here it has definitely been an honor for me so thank you again and i'm trying not to cry but thank you so much for being here thank you so much this was a great invitation especially to honor rosa parks someone that we all have studied about and we all love thank you and thank you for joining us on a special edition of everybody with angela williamson join us wednesday evenings at 10 30 to watch more interviews like the one you just watched tonight viewers like you make the screening possible good night and stay well [Music] you