Mighty Times: The Legacy of Rosa Parks (2002)

User Rating:

9.0/10   

Director:

Robert Houston

Writer:

Robert Houston (writer)

Genre:

Documentary | Short

Plot Keywords:

Ku Klux Klan | Civil Rights | Civil Rights Movement | Boycott | Southern U.S.

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 1 win

Cast

Coretta Scott King	...	Herself (archive footage)
Martin Luther King	...	Himself (archive footage)
Nick LaTour	...	Narrator
E.D. Nixon	...	Himself (archive footage)
Rosa Parks	...	Herself (archive footage)

Runtime:

40 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White | Color

Company:

Tell the Truth Pictures

Who took the live footage of Rosa Parks & the Montgomery Bus Boycott?

"Mighty Times," was really produced by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Reverend Bob Graetz & wife Shirley & two more generations of his family, are still involved in US Civil Rights & take people on tours of the significant areas of Birmingham (known back in the 1950's as 'Bombingham'). He was the Caucasian Lutheran minister of an all black church in Montgomery, AL. in December of 1955 when Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat in the "colored section," so that one Caucasian man could have four seats, or two rows, to himself in the "colored section." So many times I've heard Rosa Parks' story told that refused to get up from a seat in the "white section." Not true! Historical black & white video footage proves that Parks was seated in the back of the bus! The great momentum of "Mighty Times," is that it is told not just by the adults who really lived through the Montgomery Bus Boycott, but also from grade school & teenage children who are family members of both Caucasian & black people who were directly involved.

Another interesting fact is that Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., did not 'start' the US Civil Rights movement: he helped to galvanize it after the citizens of Montgomery had already decided to stand up to "mighty whitey" supremacists. I wrote "helped" to galvanize it because King is not responsible for bringing the US Civil Rights movement together: Rosa Parks is to be credited for that. She was the perfect person at the wrong place at the right time.

Parks knew how to handle herself nonviolently when confronted by racist violence: she was already leading a youth group toward becoming a nonviolent social action group in Montgomery.

The other primary historical strength of this version of the Rosa Parks story is the amount of video footage & audio recordings of the actual people & events that all became part of the great Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Maybe I am missing someone in the film's credits, but I don't believe so. I'm left with the question I pose in the subject line: who took the live footage of Rosa Parks refusing the bloated bigoted bus driver's orders to move out of her seat? Someone with a very steady hand & keen sense of where to be at the right times was filming so many of the historical events.