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The Rebellious Life of Rosa Parks

The MLK Library is excited to host a special documentary film screening and live panel conversation moderated by executive producer Soledad O’Brien.

THE REBELLIOUS LIFE OF MRS. ROSA PARKS, based on the bestselling biography by Jeanne Theoharis and executive produced by award-winning journalist Soledad O’Brien, corrects the record on Rosa Parks’ often-overlooked accomplishments and the erasure of her radical politics. In short, what we are taught in school about Rosa Parks is a mere fraction of the full story about who she truly was. 

Doors open at 1 p.m. and the screening will begin at 1:30 p.m.

Directors Yoruba Richen and Johanna Hamilton expertly weave together interviews from academics and activists such as Bryan Stevenson, Patrisse Cullors and Ericka Huggins, along with personal stories from her family, and remarkable footage of Mrs. Parks herself, to dispel myths and to illuminate her decades-worth of extensive organizing, strategizing, and activism in the pursuit of Black liberation. Lisa Gay Hamilton lends her talent in the documentary as the voice of Mrs. Rosa Parks.

For reasonable accommodations, please contact the Center for Accessibility at 202-727-2142 or DCPLaccess@dc.gov. For ASL or tactile interpretation, please allow at least seven (7) days notice.

This program sponsored by The League, the DC Public Library Foundation, the Anacostia Community Museum and the Washington Association of Black Journalists.

About the Panelists

Soledad O’Brien is an award-winning documentarian, journalist, speaker, author, and philanthropist, and founder of Soledad O’Brien Productions, a media production company dedicated to telling empowering and authentic stories on a range of social issues. She anchors and produces "Matter of Fact with Soledad O'Brien," a Hearst political magazine program seen in  95% of the country. She is a correspondent for HBO Real Sports. was inducted into the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of fame in May 2023.  

Soledad has a national impact through her op-eds, social media, speeches and books, including her critically acclaimed memoir “The Next Big Story” and her 1.3 million Twitter followers. She gave Congressional testimony on media disinformation. She has anchored shows and specials on CNN, MSNBC and NBC’s Today Show, Nat Geo, BET, ABC, and CBS.

Soledad O’Brien Productions’ most recent projects include the Peabody-Award winning documentary, “The Rebellious Life of Rosa Parks” which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and streams on Peacock, and the multi-part series “Black and Missing”, which won the Independent Spirit and NAACP awards and streams on HBO.  Other productions have appeared on Discovery Plus, CNN, BET, PBS, and others. She also works with major foundations, like Ford and Gates, to produce impactful documentaries on topics like hunger, race and education.

O’Brien’s work has been recognized with four Emmy awards, three times with the George Foster Peabody Award, four times with the Gracie Award, which honors women in media, twice with Cine Awards for her work in documentary films and with an Alfred I. DuPont Award.

She founded the PowHerful foundation in 2011 which has helped dozens of young women get to and through college and connects with thousands of others through regional mentoring conferences.

Yoruba Richen is an award-winning documentary filmmaker whose work has been featured on multiple outlets, including Netflix, MSNBC, FX/Hulu, HBO and PBS. Her latest film, The Cost of Inheritance, will premiere next year on PBS.  Her film that she co-directed with Johanna Hamilton, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks (Peacock), was honored by the Television Academy and won a Peabody Award and a Gracie Award.  Other recent work include the Emmy-nominated films  American Reckoning (Frontline),  How It Feels to Be Free (American Masters), The Sit In: Harry Belafonte Hosts the Tonight Show (Peacock) and Green Book: Guide to Freedom (Smithsonian Channel).  Her film, The Killing of Breonna Taylor (HULU) won an NAACP Image Award and her previous films, The New Black and Promised Land won multiple festival awards before airing on PBS’s Independent Lens and P.O.V.  Yoruba is a past Guggenheim and Fulbright fellow and she won the Creative Promise Award at Tribeca All Access.  She was a Sundance Fellow and is a recipient of the Chicken & Egg Breakthrough Filmmaker’s Award.  Yoruba is the Founding Director of the Documentary Program at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY.

Johanna Hamilton is an Emmy and Peabody–winning director/producer. Most recently, she series-directed THE ASHLEY MADISON AFFAIR for Hulu. THE REBELLIOUS LIFE OF ROSA PARKS co-directed with Yoruba Richen unveils her radical vision of justice and courage over a lifetime. Awarded a Peabody and a TV Academy Honor that recognizes remarkable programming that “harnessed the extraordinary power of storytelling to fuel social change.” Her previous work includes 1971 that won the IDA’s ABC News VideoSource award and Cinema Eye’s Spotlight Award, and was nominated for an Emmy; PARCHED, a National Geographic Channel series executive produced by Alex Gibney, also nominated for an Emmy; WRONG MAN, a Starz series about wrongful convictions was co-directed with Joe Berlinger; She co-produced PRAY THE DEVIL BACK TO HELL the story of the women who demanded peace for Liberia that was short-listed for an Academy Award. Her short, THE TRIAL about Guantanamo premiered at SXSW and won the Youth Jury Award at AspenShorts Fest. She executive produced JACKSON that won the Emmy for Best Social Issue film in 2018.

Author Dr. Jeanne Theoharis is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College of City University of New York and the author of the widely-acclaimed biography The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, which won a 2014 NAACP Image Award and the Letitia Woods Brown Award from the Association of Black Women Historians and appeared on the New York Times bestseller list. Her recent book A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History won the 2018 Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize in Nonfiction. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, MSNBC, The Nation, Slate, the Atlantic, Boston Review, Salon, the Intercept, and the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Alicia Butler is a native of Seattle, WA and currently serves as the Health and Wellness Policy Adviser for the National Action Network (NAN), where she is responsible for overseeing all of their national health and wellness initiatives centering black health equity. Over the years, she has worked diligently on NAN’s Covid-19 response efforts, engaged in conversations on the expansion of the Affordable Care Act, organized discussions and events related to mental health and reproductive justice/maternal health and works with other civil rights organizations and corporate partners to address pressing health inequities in the African American community. She also works closely with legislators on Capitol Hill and the White House, acting as a liaison, where she tracks important health legislation and recommendations for NAN to take the charge on.          

Prior to this, she obtained a degree in Political Science from Southern University and A&M College in 2018 and went on to work on Capitol Hill for three years, handling policy and constituent correspondence for the citizens of Washington state. In her free time, she enjoys reading, hanging with loved ones, taking walks and is in the process of becoming a certified trauma informed doula.

Internationally recognized young civil rights activist and movement strategist Tylik McMillan,  is a native of Lawrenceville Virginia, by way of Harrisburg Pennsylvania and a proud HBCU graduate of North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. 

At a young age, Tylik got his foundation at the National Action Network  (NAN). Under the leadership and mentorship of Rev. Al Sharpton, Tylik served as a Washington D.C. Bureau Senior Policy Advisor and National Director of Youth and College of NAN which is one of the nation's leading civil rights organizations working in the spirit and tradition of Dr. King, to promote the modern civil rights agenda.

In his capacity, he worked to educate lawmakers and stakeholders from the White House to corporate c-suites on the challenges and opportunities facing communities, by advocating for more resources and policies that help invest and advance economic and social equality. His government affairs portfolio includes issues from tech, policing/criminal justice, federal sentencing reform, ending racial profiling, equal employment protection, immigration, access to affordable/quality education, voting rights protection, housing, and other various issues that impact social and economic status, mobility and empowerment of urban and underserved communities.

Tylik helped organize the 2020 Commitment March on Washington and 2021 March On for Voting Rights which drew over hundreds of thousands to Washington DC which called for racial justice, police reform, voting rights protections, census participation and more.

Tylik is a member of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity Inc.,  Phi Beta Sigma  Political Action Committee Board of Directors, member of the Association of Young Americans Board of Directors and member of the Virginia Civics Advisory Council. Alongside Reverend Al Sharpton, Tylik is a former Thursday co-host of the nationally syndicated daily radio show Keepin’ It Real. Within his work Tylik has corresponded on MSNBC, BBC World News and others. He has been recognized by Vice President Kamala Harris and the White House as a prominent young voice to help lead our nation forward.

Tylik has been recognized as a Bloomberg 50 One to Watch, United States Black Chamber of Commerce 50 Under 40, National Urban League Young Professional National Trailblazer, featured by Good Morning America, CBS Morning News, Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CNN, BBC, BET among other global, national, and local outlets. Tylik wishes to inspire other young people to get involved and make civic engagement the new norm, not the exception

The DC Public Library Foundation partners with the DC Public Library to enhance Washington, DC’s public libraries, bringing private philanthropy together with government support to ensure that our libraries deliver the highest quality of service to the District’s residents. With the help of many generous people, the Foundation provides educational programs for children and youth, workforce development training, cultural events, and collection enhancements for DC’s libraries.

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