This movie would dovetail nicely into a movie titled "Boycott" (2001) starring Jeffrey Wright, Terrence Howard, CCH Pounder, and Carmen Ejogo. "Boycott" focused on the Montgomery bus boycott itself and Martin Luther King, Jr. "The Rosa Parks Story" is about Rosa Parks' life culminating with the fateful day she decided not to yield her seat to a white man and the historic events that occurred afterwards.

Rosa Parks is one of two or three Black historical figures that we hear about every February (MLK is the other). It's pretty pathetic that the same two or three figures keep getting recycled year after year as though no other African Americans existed. But even with that, I never knew ANYTHING about Rosa Parks except that she was the impetus behind the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott of 1955-56.

Still, not everyone's life makes for good viewing even if it makes for a good story. Rosa Parks' life falls under that category. What she did was monumental, even if she wasn't the first to do it. Rosa Parks just so happened to have the image needed for a movement. TRPS alluded to the fact that Parks was good enough to rally behind.

I want to be sure that it's understood that my opinion of the movie is wholly separate from my opinion of Rosa Parks. Rosa Parks is unimpeachable in my opinion and I wouldn't dare say a bad word about her. TRPS, however, is an artist's depiction of her life put to celluloid. And it was just OK. It was a bit dull, as could be expected, and they made her husband out to be a sourpuss. Mr. Raymond Parks came off as selfish, unsupportive, and consequential anti-progress. I honestly don't know what kind of man he was since I NEVER heard of a Mr. Parks, just Rosa Parks. Truthfully, I didn't even know she was married.

I've seen well over a hundred biopics and biographical movies which gives me a cache of movies to compare to. TRPS couldn't really compare to some of the better biopics out there. They could not have chosen a better lead actress in Angela Bassett, but a good lead doesn't equal a slam dunk of a movie. It isn't a bad movie, I just think it could've been so much better.

In this film made three years before her death at 92, Rosa Parks was given a most accurate portrayal of her life and the times she grew up in. One simple act of disobedience to an unjust and demeaning law sparked the conscience of the caring members of a nation.

I have to confess that I did not know much about Rosa Parks other than that act on Christmas Eve of 1955 when she refused to give up a seat on a bus to a white person because the Jim Crow laws demanded it. In fact I believe that most people think that she was just a department store seamstress which the civil rights movement used as a symbol against injustice.

Rosa Parks, born Rosa Louise McCauley in the area around Montgomery, Alabama was quite politically aware. Part of that came from her marriage to barber Raymond Parks played here by Peter Francis James. It may have looked like an ordinary black barbershop to a lot of people, but in fact it was a meeting place for what was deemed revolutionary activity by the segregationists in control. You could find all kinds of radical literature there, not on public display to be sure, but stuff put out by the NAACP and even the Communist Party. When Raymond had met and was courting Rosa in 1932 he was raising money for the Scottsboro case, the notorious one where several black homeless youths riding in a freight car during the depression, allegedly gang raped some white women who were in similar economic circumstances.

Rosa was the secretary of the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP which was not a paying job. Which was why she was working as a seamstress when her call from destiny occurred on Christmas. The woman had a history of civil rights activism that I was not aware of.

Angela Bassett does a fine job in capturing the hopes and dreams and frustrations of a woman who saw and wanted a lot more from life than what she was restricted to. You'll also see Dexter King play his immortal father Martin Luther King who first came to prominence during the boycott of the Montgomery Bus System that resulted from Rosa's arrest and fine.

It's now 64 years since Rosa Parks made a defiant act against injustice the symbol of the Civil Rights movement. The Rosa Parks Story is an absolute must for any young viewers who want to acquaint themselves with a triumph against an unjust way of life.

In continuing to review in chronological order the achievements of African-Americans in film and television for Black History Month, we're now at 2002 with The Rosa Parks Story, written by Paris Qualles, directed by Julie Dash, and starring Angela Bassett who also serves as an executive producer. We follow the woman born Rosa McCauley's life story from when she was a child (as played by Charde Manzy) attending an all-colored-(as they were described as then)girls Catholic school with a Caucasian female teacher to her marriage to Raymond Parks (Peter Francis James) to her first confrontation with the mean white bus driver (Sonny Shroyer in a role very much different from deputy 'Dipstick' Enos on "The Dukes of Hazzard") to her arrest from that same driver with police backup. That first scene with Shroyer was really frightening with the way he treats her when she refuses to go to the back entrance to get back on because of the hard rain outside. Another intense scene is one that takes place after the famous incident when Rosa answers the phone that rings for a long time and looks shocked after she puts the receiver to her ear. Everything about Ms. Parks as performed by Bassett rings true here. Also fine is Mr. James as husband Raymond who's charming when he first courts Rosa even when she constantly refuses to see him and then is initially hesitant when he realizes the consequences of his wife's actions. And then there's the great Cicely Tyson, Miss Jane Pittman herself, who delivers perhaps the most inspirational speech as Leona McCauley to her daughter near the end of the movie. That and Dexter Scott King portraying his father Dr. Martin Luther make The Rosa Parks Story a very compelling movie biography. As an added treat, we see President Bill Clinton, in his second-to-last State of the Union address, acknowledging Ms. Parks in the audience and saying she can sit anywhere she wants! With all that said, I highly recommend The Rosa Parks Story to anyone with an interest in American history's darkest days and the good that resulted when someone did something to help put an end to it. And of course to any fan of Ms. Bassett. P.S. Peter Francis James is, like me, a Chicago native.