By Her Side: The True View From Within. My Blessed 45-Year Journey by The Side of Rosa Louise Parks

by Mrs. Elaine Eason Steele, Gene Cartwright

By Her Side Hardcover Published February 4, 2023, on Rosa Parks' BirthdayWhat follows can only be honestly said by one person, Elaine Eason Steele. By Her Side chronicles her unique and enduring friendship, her heart and soul, and her arm-in-arm 45-year journey with Mrs. Rosa Parks.There are more than 200 books about her dearest and closest friend, her mentor, and spiritual mother, Mrs. Rosa Louise Parks. The public may be forgiven for accepting as fact the many now ingrained misperceptions of Mrs. Parks' life. That is true for many of the celebrated heroes of the struggle for freedom and justice.However, Elaine Eason Steele takes it personally. She was there, from age 16, with a view from within the room, not as an outsider. The journey continues.—Mrs. Rosa L. Parks is honored as the "Mother of the Modern Civil Rights Movement." Her tireless activism long predates her refusal to surrender her bus seat on December 1, 1955. Her selfless act ignited the organization of the historic Montgomery Bus Boycott. This was only a part of activism before and after that momentous day. Only Mrs. Elaine Eason Steele presents a true view from the inside, not one born of speculation and academic pursuits. It is time to set the record straight.Mrs. Rosa L. Parks always spoke the truth. However, myths, lies, and misperceptions always follow in the wake of the passing of historical figures. Today, only Mrs. Elaine Eason Steele has standing as the source of the firsthand truth regarding Mrs. Parks. By Her Side is a revealing autobiography whose timing could not be more vital, given the 'code red' state of our democracy, the attack on civil rights, voting rights, and the constitution itself.Mrs. Rosa Parks and Mrs. Elaine Eason Steele met in Detroit in 1961 when Elaine was a 17-year-old high school student. For 45 years, until Mrs. Parks’ passing in 2005, Mrs. Steele—Co-founder of the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development, was Mrs. Parks' closest friend, senior assistant, principal advisor, and confidante, fellow civil rights activist, and—as Mrs. Parks described her—her spiritual daughter. They were that close.Now, Mrs. Steele shares her unique eyewitness view of history. It is unfortunate that only after Mrs. Parks' death have prominent voices—some within the Civil Rights movement—engaged in revisionist history regarding her singularly critical role that sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott.By Her Side, Mrs. Steele's revealing book explodes myths and lies arising since Mrs. Parks' passing that seek to diminish the fact that her selfless act ignited the historic Montgomery Bus Boycott—led by her friend, whom she knew before—The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.Mrs. Steele makes clear, in By Her Side, that Mrs. Parks' activism predates her refusal to surrender her bus seat on December 1, 1955. In one infamous case, fully detailed in the book, she represented Mrs. Recy Taylor, a 24-year-old black mother raped by six white men in 1944. Another is the Scottsboro Boys case, which she and her long-activist husband, Raymond Parks, represented.

Mrs. Elaine Steele, The Rosa Parks Story CBS Movie

Mrs. Rosa Parks' selfless act in 1955, then age 42, on that Montgomery bus, inspired the organization of, four days later, the historic Montgomery Bus Boycott led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Elaine Eason Steele's By Her Side presents a true view from the inside, not one born of speculation. She was there. It is time to set the record straight.

354 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 2, 2023