Teacher brings past to life with a visit from Rosa Parks
Published: February 25, 2006
A 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air pulled into the bus loop at Manchester High School yesterday, and from the car stepped a petite woman in vintage clothing.
For the day, Manchester special education teacher Tina Jackson-Hanson personified the late Rosa Parks.
Manchester Principal Peter Koste designated yesterday as Rosa Parks day, part of the school’s Black History Month activities.
“I wanted to bring history alive for the students,” Jackson-Hanson said, noting the slight physical resemblance to Parks, the woman many call the mother of the civil rights movement.
In December 1955, Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man on a city bus in Montgomery, Ala., despite the Jim Crow laws of the day that blacks had to sit at the back of the bus. Her arrest sparked a boycott of the city’s public transportation system and energized the civil rights movement.
Jackson-Hanson’s interest in Rosa Parks started from a young age. Her grandmother was named Rosa, and she said she was always interested in the life of Rosa Parks.
Both women, Jackson-Hanson said, led lives of grace, dignity and inner strength.
“There were two Rosas in my life that have guided me,” Jackson-Hanson said, adding she lives by those values every day.
“I try to be a role model,” she said.
Jackson-Hanson is also the school sponsor for the Umoja Unity Club, which has more than 200 students this year. Umoja reflects the spirit of togetherness and is the first principle of Kwanzaa.
Students yesterday said Jackson-Hanson looked the part.
Tara Davenport, vice president of the Unity Club, gave Jackson-Hanson a hug and said “it felt like I was hugging Rosa Parks.”
Brittina Muniz, the club’s other vice president, said Rosa Parks’ stories are still relevant today.
“We still have racial issues,” she said.
Davenport said it’s unfortunate that in today’s society, by the time they get to high school, “students’ racial values are already set, and there’s no changing that.”
But Muniz said it’s still good to be reminded of this nation’s history and the events that led to the civil rights movement.
Allen Thomas, another student, said, “Anybody can learn from the struggles that African-Americans have gone through.”
He said there may be some students who don’t care about Rosa Parks day, “but I’m sure it’ll have an impact on some people.”
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