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Athens Chautauqua Virtual Talk “Rosa Parks@2155*: The Significance of Her Legacy”

Riché Richardson is a scholar and artist who has drawn on the icon in writing and research.  In this talk, she reflects on the life, activism and continuing significance of Rosa Parks. In her presentation, she illustrates how Parks’s scripts as a national mother have challenged conventional definitions of American identity and ideals of womanhood.  Her talk considers the futuristic themes and implications of Rosa Parks’s activism and writing and one of the major public institutions established in her honor. 

These insights amplify the message of the heroine as a universal one that remains relevant for youth growing up in the twenty-first century in a digital age. She analyzes the Children’s Wing exhibition added to the Rosa Parks Museum in 2006 and its dynamic futuristic engagement with Parks’s legacy.  Dr Richardson ends her talk with some brief comments on the 2013 science fiction film Elsyium to explain why the message of Rosa Parks remains so vital for building a better future.   

*2155 refers to the time 200 years after 1955, the setting in the film mentioned in the description and the afrofuturistic themes Dr. Richardson will discuss.

Presented by Riche Richardson, Ph.D., Associate Professor of African American literature in the Africana Studies and Research Center, Cornell University, NY

May 20, 2021 04:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)