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Protesting with Rosa Parks: From Stagecoaches to Driving While Black
Protesting with Rosa Parks details the long and winding history of the intersections between Black activism and travel. John K. Bollard recounts the experiences of more than ninety-five people who stood up against the oppressive legality of Jim Crow on stagecoaches, trains, streetcars, steamboats, buses, planes, and even elevators. Beginning with the little-known Emiliano Mundrucu and the indefatigable David Ruggles, through John Lewis to Sandra Bland and Tyre Nichols, Bollard gives us the one-hundred-ninety-year-long story of both influential civil rights leaders and private citizens who took a determined and dangerous stance against racism as they traveled. While the mainstream historical narrative often gives the impression that Rosa Parks acted alone (and first), this book reveals her refusal to move as part of a long-standing tradition of social commitment, sacrifice, and protest that continues today.
Protesting with Rosa Parks is a chronological, chaptered account of many brave activists who fought against discrimination where Black and white passengers shared confined spaces in close proximity. Focusing on incidents in which someone was denied a seat and the subsequent result of that denial, Bollard illuminates an unbroken stream of protest that strives to guarantee everyone the right to ride on our collective journey towards equality.
Protesting with Rosa Parks is a chronological, chaptered account of many brave activists who fought against discrimination where Black and white passengers shared confined spaces in close proximity. Focusing on incidents in which someone was denied a seat and the subsequent result of that denial, Bollard illuminates an unbroken stream of protest that strives to guarantee everyone the right to ride on our collective journey towards equality.
424 pages, Paperback
Published August 1, 2025
17 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 21, 2025
Book Review: Protesting with Rosa Parks: From Stagecoaches to Driving While Black by John K. Bollard
As a female sociologist and public health professional, I approached Bollard’s work with a dual interest in how systemic racism manifests in mobility and how transportation inequities compound health disparities. The book’s expansive historical lens—spanning 190 years of resistance against segregated transit—offers a powerful framework for understanding transportation as both a site of oppression and a battleground for liberation.
Critical Engagement and Emotional Resonance
Bollard’s centering of lesser-known activists alongside icons like Rosa Parks stirred both admiration and grief. His documentation of figures like David Ruggles (who challenged segregated stagecoaches in 1838) and Sandra Bland (whose traffic stop became fatal in 2015) creates a visceral throughline that connects historical struggles to contemporary racialized policing. As a sociologist, I appreciated how the book frames mobility as a social determinant of health: restricted movement limits access to jobs, healthcare, and social capital, perpetuating cycles of disadvantage. The chapter on Tyre Nichols—whose fatal beating followed a traffic stop—was particularly harrowing, underscoring how cars, like buses, remain contested spaces for Black bodily autonomy.
Yet, I questioned the book’s occasional flattening of intersectionality. While Bollard meticulously chronicles racial discrimination, gender and disability receive uneven attention. For instance, the activism of Claudette Colvin (a pregnant teen arrested before Parks) is mentioned but not deeply analyzed through a feminist lens. As a public health leader, I also missed explicit discussion of how transit inequities exacerbate maternal mortality or chronic disease in Black communities—a missed opportunity to bridge civil rights history with health justice.
Constructive Criticism
-Intersectional Depth: The analysis would benefit from integrating how race intersects with gender, class, and disability in mobility struggles (e.g., Black disabled activists’ fights for accessible transit).
-Health Equity Links: Bollard could strengthen ties to public health by citing studies on how transit barriers correlate with health outcomes (e.g., “transit deserts” and diabetes prevalence).
-Contemporary Policy: While historical narratives are robust, the conclusion could more forcefully address present-day reforms (e.g., traffic stop legislation, electric vehicle equity).
Why This Book Matters
Protesting with Rosa Parks reframes transportation as a litmus test for democracy. For sociologists, it models how to trace systemic oppression across institutions; for public health professionals, it reveals mobility as a foundational determinant of wellbeing. Bollard’s work compels readers to see every bus seat and traffic light as potential sites of racial reckoning—or renewal.
Thank you to the publisher and Edelweiss for providing a complimentary review copy. This book is an indispensable map of the long road toward justice, reminding us that the journey itself is the struggle.
Reviewer’s Note: Pair with The Color of Law (Rothstein) for housing-transit parallels or Medical Apartheid (Washington) for health justice connections. A seminal, if imperfect, contribution to critical race and mobility studies.
As a female sociologist and public health professional, I approached Bollard’s work with a dual interest in how systemic racism manifests in mobility and how transportation inequities compound health disparities. The book’s expansive historical lens—spanning 190 years of resistance against segregated transit—offers a powerful framework for understanding transportation as both a site of oppression and a battleground for liberation.
Critical Engagement and Emotional Resonance
Bollard’s centering of lesser-known activists alongside icons like Rosa Parks stirred both admiration and grief. His documentation of figures like David Ruggles (who challenged segregated stagecoaches in 1838) and Sandra Bland (whose traffic stop became fatal in 2015) creates a visceral throughline that connects historical struggles to contemporary racialized policing. As a sociologist, I appreciated how the book frames mobility as a social determinant of health: restricted movement limits access to jobs, healthcare, and social capital, perpetuating cycles of disadvantage. The chapter on Tyre Nichols—whose fatal beating followed a traffic stop—was particularly harrowing, underscoring how cars, like buses, remain contested spaces for Black bodily autonomy.
Yet, I questioned the book’s occasional flattening of intersectionality. While Bollard meticulously chronicles racial discrimination, gender and disability receive uneven attention. For instance, the activism of Claudette Colvin (a pregnant teen arrested before Parks) is mentioned but not deeply analyzed through a feminist lens. As a public health leader, I also missed explicit discussion of how transit inequities exacerbate maternal mortality or chronic disease in Black communities—a missed opportunity to bridge civil rights history with health justice.
Constructive Criticism
-Intersectional Depth: The analysis would benefit from integrating how race intersects with gender, class, and disability in mobility struggles (e.g., Black disabled activists’ fights for accessible transit).
-Health Equity Links: Bollard could strengthen ties to public health by citing studies on how transit barriers correlate with health outcomes (e.g., “transit deserts” and diabetes prevalence).
-Contemporary Policy: While historical narratives are robust, the conclusion could more forcefully address present-day reforms (e.g., traffic stop legislation, electric vehicle equity).
Why This Book Matters
Protesting with Rosa Parks reframes transportation as a litmus test for democracy. For sociologists, it models how to trace systemic oppression across institutions; for public health professionals, it reveals mobility as a foundational determinant of wellbeing. Bollard’s work compels readers to see every bus seat and traffic light as potential sites of racial reckoning—or renewal.
Thank you to the publisher and Edelweiss for providing a complimentary review copy. This book is an indispensable map of the long road toward justice, reminding us that the journey itself is the struggle.
Reviewer’s Note: Pair with The Color of Law (Rothstein) for housing-transit parallels or Medical Apartheid (Washington) for health justice connections. A seminal, if imperfect, contribution to critical race and mobility studies.
May 27, 2025
This one will make you angry. And these forms of banal evil or "quotidian malice" are careening back to the fore of American life, making this an essential read for the present day.
The author takes us on a historical trek, outlining in great detail a wide range of actual incidents of Black folks being controlled and worse through the mechanism of public transportation. Simply taking a spot on a bus or a train or a cab or any social commute option was in one sense a hazard and another a chance to make a stand for the humanity of African Americans. The author shows how companies and people with power would misuse their resources to maintain the status quo, for example by going to court and incurring fees far surpassing any original fines. As the author writes, "Every concession of privilege was yielded begrudgingly." We also learn about the various courageous figures who stood up for social justice at great personal cost. One tale struck me the most:
A white rider yelled from the front, "You got to get up!" A girl named Marget Johnson answered from the back, "She ain't got to do nothin' but stay black and die."
The events detailed here are meticulous and blood-curdling. At the same time, there's almost a little bit too much detail, with long quotes and passages from source material to drive home the author's points that also wear the reader down a bit.
Thank you to Edelweiss+ and Newsouth Books for the advance copy.
The author takes us on a historical trek, outlining in great detail a wide range of actual incidents of Black folks being controlled and worse through the mechanism of public transportation. Simply taking a spot on a bus or a train or a cab or any social commute option was in one sense a hazard and another a chance to make a stand for the humanity of African Americans. The author shows how companies and people with power would misuse their resources to maintain the status quo, for example by going to court and incurring fees far surpassing any original fines. As the author writes, "Every concession of privilege was yielded begrudgingly." We also learn about the various courageous figures who stood up for social justice at great personal cost. One tale struck me the most:
A white rider yelled from the front, "You got to get up!" A girl named Marget Johnson answered from the back, "She ain't got to do nothin' but stay black and die."
The events detailed here are meticulous and blood-curdling. At the same time, there's almost a little bit too much detail, with long quotes and passages from source material to drive home the author's points that also wear the reader down a bit.
Thank you to Edelweiss+ and Newsouth Books for the advance copy.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews