The Politics of Children's Literature: The Story of Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott

Abstract

Racism in the United States is an issue that is usually considered too sensitive to be dealt with directly in the elementary school classroom. When African Americans and European Americans confront each other in children's literature, the situation is routinely described as a problem between individuals that can be worked out on a personal basis. In the few cases where racism is addressed as a social problem, there has to be a happy ending. This is most readily apparent in the biographical treatment of Rosa Parks, one of the two names that most children in the United States associate with the civil rights movement in the South of the U.S., the other being Martin Luther King, Jr. Over the past few years, during school visits I make, I've talked with children about the civil rights movement. One of the things I ask the children