Welcome to the History Tricks, where any resemblance to a boring old history lesson is purely coincidental.

Hi, it's Susan. In the beginning of this month, that would be December of 2019, in the South Gallery on the second floor of the Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress in Washington DC, a new exhibit opened.

Rosa Parks in her own words, it's an exhibit and there's also a companion book by Susan Rayburn.

Both explore Rosa's life and legacy through items in the Rosa Parks collection and through her private writings.

In the forward of the book, Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden said, quote,

these writings reveal her keen observations, youthful rage, strong faith, and an ongoing hope as well as an abiding love for those closest to her.

That very same week that the exhibit opened, a new statue of Rosa was unveiled in Montgomery, Alabama to commemorate the 64th anniversary of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

This combined news got Becca and I talking about Rosa's life, so we thought it was a good time to look back at her episode.

In the show notes for this particular episode, we'll link you to information about the exhibit at the Library of Congress.

There is an online tour because thank you, Library of Congress, you realize that most of us can't get to Washington DC.

So there's lots of photographs, there's lots of bits of the exhibit that we can see from the comfort of our living rooms, so that's awesome.

And we'll also link you to information about the statue in Alabama.

Over the years, Becca and I have learned that December is a very tricky month for us to record new episodes, so this month we'll be revisiting a couple episodes that were important to us.

Thank you for joining us as we travel all the way back to 2012 for this conversation about Rosa Parks.

And here's your 30-second summary.

The day that changed the life of this woman was as common as many she'd lived before, but all of the actions and all of the lessons from all of those days work together to form her into an instrument for change.

And then one common day, Rosa Parks stepped on a bus.

The End.

Let's talk about Rosa Parks, but first let's place her in history.

In 1955, Mary and Anderson became the first black performer at the Met.

Scrabble first appeared on the shelves.

The Panama Canal Treaty was signed.

...