Jeanne Theoharis
@jeannetheoharis.bsky.social
Distinguished Professor at Brooklyn College, Author of The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks and King of the North: Martin Luther King Jr.'s Life of Struggle Outside the South
6) Rosa Parks wasn't meek. A lifelong believer in self defense, her politics were expansive. She loved Martin & Malcolm & Stokely, Ella Baker & Queen Mother Moore, fought for reparations, Black history in every curriculum, prisoner defense, welfare rights—"any move to show we are dissatisfied."
December 1, 2025 at 3:27 PM
6) Rosa Parks wasn't meek. A lifelong believer in self defense, her politics were expansive. She loved Martin & Malcolm & Stokely, Ella Baker & Queen Mother Moore, fought for reparations, Black history in every curriculum, prisoner defense, welfare rights—"any move to show we are dissatisfied."
5) The Parks weren't middle class. They were living in the Cleveland Court projects when she was arrested. Both she and her husband lost their jobs because of her bus stand. Forced to leave Montgomery 8 months after the boycott's end, they moved to Detroit—"the Northern promised land that wasn't."
December 1, 2025 at 3:27 PM
5) The Parks weren't middle class. They were living in the Cleveland Court projects when she was arrested. Both she and her husband lost their jobs because of her bus stand. Forced to leave Montgomery 8 months after the boycott's end, they moved to Detroit—"the Northern promised land that wasn't."
4) Rosa Parks wasn't quiet at key moments. In fact when the police asked her why she didn't move, she spoke back "Why do you push us around?" In jail, she met a woman wrongfully imprisoned for defending herself against an abusive boyfriend; Parks smuggled out her brother's number to let him know
December 1, 2025 at 3:27 PM
4) Rosa Parks wasn't quiet at key moments. In fact when the police asked her why she didn't move, she spoke back "Why do you push us around?" In jail, she met a woman wrongfully imprisoned for defending herself against an abusive boyfriend; Parks smuggled out her brother's number to let him know
3) There wasn't anything to suggest this was a history-changing event. You know that mugshot photo. It's NOT from this arrest but from one 2 months later when she was arrested as a 'boycott leader.' It's often misattributed because we like the version where the right act is obvious when it happens.
December 1, 2025 at 3:27 PM
3) There wasn't anything to suggest this was a history-changing event. You know that mugshot photo. It's NOT from this arrest but from one 2 months later when she was arrested as a 'boycott leader.' It's often misattributed because we like the version where the right act is obvious when it happens.
2) There was nothing to suggest that making a stand that day would do anything. She'd made stands before. Other had too. It was lonely. No one joined her on the bus—worried she would be hurt, that it wouldn't do anything. That is Rosa Parks' courage—the ability to persist amid fear and uncertainty.
December 1, 2025 at 3:27 PM
2) There was nothing to suggest that making a stand that day would do anything. She'd made stands before. Other had too. It was lonely. No one joined her on the bus—worried she would be hurt, that it wouldn't do anything. That is Rosa Parks' courage—the ability to persist amid fear and uncertainty.
Today is the 70th anniversary of Rosa Parks' arrest. Six myths: 1) She wasn't old or tired. 42 years old that day, she had a "life history of being rebellious" & had spent two decades helping to turn the Montgomery NAACP into a more activist branch alongside ED Nixon and Johnnie Carr.
December 1, 2025 at 3:27 PM
Today is the 70th anniversary of Rosa Parks' arrest. Six myths: 1) She wasn't old or tired. 42 years old that day, she had a "life history of being rebellious" & had spent two decades helping to turn the Montgomery NAACP into a more activist branch alongside ED Nixon and Johnnie Carr.
Mark your calendars! On Thurs. Dec 4th online at 6:30, Schomburg Conversations in Black Freedom Struggles will be celebrating 30 years of Charles Payne's I've Got the Light of Freedom with Tess Raser, Emilye Crosby, Hasan Jeffries, Charles Cobb & Charles Payne! This is going to be a special CBFS!
November 12, 2025 at 1:22 PM
Mark your calendars! On Thurs. Dec 4th online at 6:30, Schomburg Conversations in Black Freedom Struggles will be celebrating 30 years of Charles Payne's I've Got the Light of Freedom with Tess Raser, Emilye Crosby, Hasan Jeffries, Charles Cobb & Charles Payne! This is going to be a special CBFS!
So honored that the great @sifill.bsky.social highlighted how much she loved KING OF THE NORTH and the ways it shows us whole dimensions of Martin and Coretta Scott King’s work that had been buried.
September 30, 2025 at 9:52 PM
So honored that the great @sifill.bsky.social highlighted how much she loved KING OF THE NORTH and the ways it shows us whole dimensions of Martin and Coretta Scott King’s work that had been buried.
@jamellebouie.net, that's true. Yet, most books on MLK Southernize him & miss whole swaths of his politics. They hew to the white media story that he discovers the North after Watts —which is simply not true. That's why I spent years writing this. There's a lot that we don't understand about King.
September 21, 2025 at 5:38 PM
@jamellebouie.net, that's true. Yet, most books on MLK Southernize him & miss whole swaths of his politics. They hew to the white media story that he discovers the North after Watts —which is simply not true. That's why I spent years writing this. There's a lot that we don't understand about King.
What a gift to be invited by Rev. Warnock to Ebenezer and get to share KING OF THE NORTH during church! Martin & Coretta Scott King were political partners, MLK clocked 6 million miles traveling to support movements across the US & and spent hundreds of hours working and talking with gang members.
September 15, 2025 at 11:19 AM
What a gift to be invited by Rev. Warnock to Ebenezer and get to share KING OF THE NORTH during church! Martin & Coretta Scott King were political partners, MLK clocked 6 million miles traveling to support movements across the US & and spent hundreds of hours working and talking with gang members.
So honored to be going to Ebenezer Baptist Church
Sunday to worship with Reverend @warnock.senate.gov
and talk about King of the North and Dr. King's long challenge to segregation and police brutality outside the South & his political partner and antiwar activist wife Coretta Scott King.
Sunday to worship with Reverend @warnock.senate.gov
and talk about King of the North and Dr. King's long challenge to segregation and police brutality outside the South & his political partner and antiwar activist wife Coretta Scott King.
September 8, 2025 at 3:53 PM
So honored to be going to Ebenezer Baptist Church
Sunday to worship with Reverend @warnock.senate.gov
and talk about King of the North and Dr. King's long challenge to segregation and police brutality outside the South & his political partner and antiwar activist wife Coretta Scott King.
Sunday to worship with Reverend @warnock.senate.gov
and talk about King of the North and Dr. King's long challenge to segregation and police brutality outside the South & his political partner and antiwar activist wife Coretta Scott King.
Look what came in the
mail! Don’t miss @madameclair08.bsky.social’s powerful history of Eleanor Bumpurs and police violence in NYC.
mail! Don’t miss @madameclair08.bsky.social’s powerful history of Eleanor Bumpurs and police violence in NYC.
August 29, 2025 at 8:23 PM
Look what came in the
mail! Don’t miss @madameclair08.bsky.social’s powerful history of Eleanor Bumpurs and police violence in NYC.
mail! Don’t miss @madameclair08.bsky.social’s powerful history of Eleanor Bumpurs and police violence in NYC.
Next Thurs Sept 4 online from 6:30-8:00, we will kick off the Schomburg Conversations in Black Freedom Studies with "Malcolm X at 100." We will be offering CTLE credit for teachers who attend. Join us for this conversation with Erik McDuffie, Anna Malaika Tubbs, Patrick Parr & Najha Zigbi-Johnson!
August 29, 2025 at 4:43 PM
Next Thurs Sept 4 online from 6:30-8:00, we will kick off the Schomburg Conversations in Black Freedom Studies with "Malcolm X at 100." We will be offering CTLE credit for teachers who attend. Join us for this conversation with Erik McDuffie, Anna Malaika Tubbs, Patrick Parr & Najha Zigbi-Johnson!
An incredible panel @brooklyncollege.bsky.social on McCarthyism Then and Now with the great Ellen Schrecker, Chengerai Kumanyika, Shana Redmond and Evan Rothman looking at the history of firings for ‘conduct’ during McCarthyism and the recent firing of four women adjuncts at BC.
August 28, 2025 at 11:39 AM
An incredible panel @brooklyncollege.bsky.social on McCarthyism Then and Now with the great Ellen Schrecker, Chengerai Kumanyika, Shana Redmond and Evan Rothman looking at the history of firings for ‘conduct’ during McCarthyism and the recent firing of four women adjuncts at BC.
Next Thursday September 4 online at 6:30 EST, Conversations in Black Freedom Studies at the Schomburg kicks off its season with Malcolm at 100!!
August 26, 2025 at 1:33 PM
Next Thursday September 4 online at 6:30 EST, Conversations in Black Freedom Studies at the Schomburg kicks off its season with Malcolm at 100!!
So grateful to have KING OF THE NORTH recognized on this short list for the Museum of African American History Stone Award.
August 23, 2025 at 12:20 AM
So grateful to have KING OF THE NORTH recognized on this short list for the Museum of African American History Stone Award.
Mark your calendars! Conversations in Black Freedom Studies online at the Schomburg Center begins its new season on Thursday Sept 4 at 6:30 EST with "Malcolm X at 100." Patrick Parr, Anna Malaika Tubbs, Erik McDuffie, and Najha Zigbi-Johnson will be in conversation. You don't want to miss this...
August 22, 2025 at 11:01 AM
Mark your calendars! Conversations in Black Freedom Studies online at the Schomburg Center begins its new season on Thursday Sept 4 at 6:30 EST with "Malcolm X at 100." Patrick Parr, Anna Malaika Tubbs, Erik McDuffie, and Najha Zigbi-Johnson will be in conversation. You don't want to miss this...
Apropos of the @nytimes.com "journalistic integrity", on April 4, Teen Vogue published this piece I wrote on my new book KING OF THE NORTH & Coretta Scott King's pivotal global activism. Two weeks later, the New York Times "discovered" the same history. The NYT needs to bring back the Public Editor!
July 7, 2025 at 1:01 PM
Apropos of the @nytimes.com "journalistic integrity", on April 4, Teen Vogue published this piece I wrote on my new book KING OF THE NORTH & Coretta Scott King's pivotal global activism. Two weeks later, the New York Times "discovered" the same history. The NYT needs to bring back the Public Editor!
Hey New York, we can have nice things! @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social & @bradlander.bsky.social campaigning together for an affordable, fair New York in Brooklyn today. Don’t rank Cuomo if you care about CUNY or sexual harassment or old people dying of COVID or a city not beholden to billionaires.
June 20, 2025 at 9:24 PM
Hey New York, we can have nice things! @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social & @bradlander.bsky.social campaigning together for an affordable, fair New York in Brooklyn today. Don’t rank Cuomo if you care about CUNY or sexual harassment or old people dying of COVID or a city not beholden to billionaires.
Rain isn’t stopping Brooklyn. No Kings protest & march
June 14, 2025 at 6:21 PM
Rain isn’t stopping Brooklyn. No Kings protest & march
Check out this amazing graphic rendering of KING OF THE NORTH by Sherrill Knezel.
May 30, 2025 at 2:07 PM
Check out this amazing graphic rendering of KING OF THE NORTH by Sherrill Knezel.
Chicago friends, join us at the great @pilsencommbooks.bsky.social next Friday May 30 at 7:00 for a community discussion on the history of the Kings and the Chicago Freedom Struggle from KING OF THE NORTH--from school boycotts to gang organizing to rent strikes to anti-lead poisoning.
May 23, 2025 at 9:41 PM
Chicago friends, join us at the great @pilsencommbooks.bsky.social next Friday May 30 at 7:00 for a community discussion on the history of the Kings and the Chicago Freedom Struggle from KING OF THE NORTH--from school boycotts to gang organizing to rent strikes to anti-lead poisoning.
On Malcolm X’s 100th, let us also remember the women he learned from and admired. Malcolm X put the word out he wanted to meet Rosa Parks in 1963 when he came to Detroit. He looked on her & Fannie Lou Hamer with awe. Rosa Parks later described Malcolm as her personal hero. Courage needs courage.
May 19, 2025 at 7:58 PM
On Malcolm X’s 100th, let us also remember the women he learned from and admired. Malcolm X put the word out he wanted to meet Rosa Parks in 1963 when he came to Detroit. He looked on her & Fannie Lou Hamer with awe. Rosa Parks later described Malcolm as her personal hero. Courage needs courage.
Coretta Scott King was a relentless activist for global peace. She went to Geneva in 1962 & marched to the UN in 1963 for nuclear disarmament. From 1965 on, she spoke out & helped lead the growing anti-Vietnam War movement. When a reporter asked MLK if he educated her, he replied “she educated me.”
April 27, 2025 at 4:17 PM
Coretta Scott King was a relentless activist for global peace. She went to Geneva in 1962 & marched to the UN in 1963 for nuclear disarmament. From 1965 on, she spoke out & helped lead the growing anti-Vietnam War movement. When a reporter asked MLK if he educated her, he replied “she educated me.”
When CSK and MLK married, she refused to wear white & took obey out of their vows because it made her feel like an “indentured servant.” When their house was bombed —and her father & father-in-law wanted them to leave Montgomery—she refused.
April 27, 2025 at 3:55 PM
When CSK and MLK married, she refused to wear white & took obey out of their vows because it made her feel like an “indentured servant.” When their house was bombed —and her father & father-in-law wanted them to leave Montgomery—she refused.