This document provides an analysis of the historical figures Elizabeth Jennings and Rosa Parks, who both resisted segregation on public transportation in the 19th and 20th centuries respectively. It outlines similarities and differences in their backgrounds and contexts. Some key similarities included that they both came from humble origins and families involved in abolition and civil rights causes. They both experienced threats of racial violence stemming from legacies of slavery and Jim Crow. They were also both involved in civil rights activism prior to their famous acts of resistance on transportation. However, the document also notes it is important to examine the differing historical contexts of the 19th versus 20th centuries that shaped their lives and activism. The purpose is to evaluate comparisons between the two women in historical narratives

1. American Educational History Journal, Volume 44, Number 1, pp. 33–48
Copyright © 2017 by Information Age Publishing
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. 33
ARTICLE 3
A CENTURY APART
An Evaluation of Historical Comparisons
Between Elizabeth Jennings and
Rosa Parks in Narratives of the
Black Freedom Movement
Katherine Perrotta
Kennesaw State University
INTRODUCTION
December 1, 2015 marked the 60th anniversary of Rosa Parks’ arrest for
refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery bus
in 1955. This incident sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the
mid-20th century civil rights movement. A century before Parks’ act of
resistance, African American schoolteacher Elizabeth Jennings was ejected
from a streetcar in New York City due to her race. She sued the streetcar
company, represented by future President Chester A. Arthur, and won in
1855. The circumstances surrounding Jennings’ forcible removal from a
segregated trolley evokes the memory of Parks. In almost all instances that
Elizabeth Jennings has been written about, she is referred to as a “nine-
teenth century Rosa Parks,” “torchbearer,” and “heroine” of civil rights a
century before Parks’ arrest (Samuel 2016; Perrotta and Bohan 2013; Sassi
2007; Greider 2005; Singer 2005; Harden-Cole 2005). Although Jennings

2. 34 K. PERROTTA
and Parks share commonalities with regard to their resistance to segrega-
tion ordinances on public transportation, there are differences between the
historical contexts that influenced their lives and activism.
Examination of whether comparisons between Parks and Jennings are
valid is warranted. Such an analysis is important in order to evaluate how
these historical figures are portrayed in historical narratives that often
appear in the social studies curriculum. Therefore, the purpose of this
research is to outline similarities and differences between Jennings and
Parks in order to determine whether these historical parallels are accurate.
The guiding question of this research is: “To what extent do the similarities
and differences between Elizabeth Jennings and Rosa Parks impact history,
education, research, and pedagogy?” Analysis of primary and secondary
sources are included in this research in order to 1) examine the historical
contexts of the mid-19th century and mid-20th centuries that influenced
Parks and Jennings’ lives and activism, and 2) discuss the implications of
these comparisons in context of Black Freedom narratives that appear in
the social studies curriculum.
HISTORICAL PARALLELS AND CONTEXTS:
ELIZABETH JENNINGS AND ROSA PARKS
An important aspect of historical research and pedagogy is illustrating the
contexts in which historical events occurred and people lived. According
to Reisman and Wineburg (2010), historical contextualization refers to
“the act of placing events in a proper context, allows teachers to weave a
rich, dynamic portrait of a historical period for their students” (202). With
this premise in mind, analysis of the contextual similarities and differ-
ences between Elizabeth Jennings and Rosa Parks’ lives and activism from
primary and secondary sources are important in order to assess whether
comparisons between these historical figures are accurate.
SIMILARITIES
Elizabeth Jennings and Rosa Parks share commonalities. Among these
commonalities include their family upbringing, experiences with racial
violence and segregation, and the images they embodied in publicizing
racial discrimination on public conveyances. First, both women were born
to families of humble origin. Jennings was born in New York City in 1830
to Thomas and Elizabeth Jennings. Although her parents were involved in
prominent organizations in the free black community, they lived modest
lives. Frederick Douglass (1859) noted that her father Thomas L. Jennings

3. A Century Apart 35
was “not an exception, but a representative of his class, whose noble sacri-
fices, and unheralded labors are too little known to the public.” Thomas
L. Jennings fought in the War of 1812, apprenticed as a tailor, and was a
boarding house operator. Jennings’ mother was a member of the Ladies
Literary Society of New York, an organization that “promoted self-improve-
ment through reading, discussion, and community activities” for the city’s
elite black women (White et. al. 2013, 299). Thomas and Elizabeth Jen-
nings had four children, one them being Elizabeth, Jr. Hence they appear
to have instilled in their children the importance of education and aboli-
tion through their involvement in organizations aimed at the “benefit and
elevation of the colored people” (Hewitt, 1990, 390; Douglass, 1855).
Rosa Parks was born into a working class family in Tuskegee, Alabama, in
1913. She notes that her mother was a schoolteacher in a rural community
who was “deserted by father at two and a half, shortly before brother’s
birth” (Parks, nd). Correspondence between her and her father James
McCauley dated 1950 indicates at some point they reconnected. Parks
states that because her mother was often “away from home working,” she
and her brother were mostly raised by her grandparents (Parks, nd). She
assumed many responsibilities as a child; tending to her brother, aiding
her grandmother in the kitchen, and helping her grandfather who suffered
from rheumatism. Although Parks’ upbringing was clearly different from
Jennings’, both women both grew up during periods of Jim Crow during
the 19th
and 20th
centuries when African American civil rights, educational,
political, and economic opportunities were nominal (Gellman 2006;
Theoharis 2013).
Second, Parks and Jennings had intimate experiences with threats of
violence that stemmed from the legacy of slavery. Jennings’ parents were
born and lived in New York prior to emancipation in 1827. Sources are
unclear about whether her mother and father were slaves, but Frederick
Douglass (1859) notes how Thomas Jennings raised his children “to rely on
themselves for support … in the midst of all the crushing influences which
human prejudice and caste could heap upon him.” Although slavery was
abolished in New York State in 1827, African Americans lived in a climate
of conditional freedom. African Americans were denied the right to vote,
hold public office, testify in court, enter interracial marriages, and have
access public facilities such as theaters, mass transit and schools (Gellman
2006). Moreover, increasing pro-Democratic sentiments towards South-
ern slavery in New York further contributed to the “defective freedom” of
blacks despite emancipation (Alexander 2008).
Jennings’ family had personal experience with violent backlash to black
emancipation while living in the antebellum North. Fourteen years before
Elizabeth’s ordeal on the Third Avenue Railway car, her brother William
was forcibly removed from a streetcar in Boston (Hewitt 1990). Jennings

4. 36 K. PERROTTA
herself encountered physical assault when she was forced to leave the
streetcar in 1854. She stated in her testimony, which was read to her church
congregation:
He [the conductor] then said I should come out and he would put me out
… he took hold of me and I took hold of the window sash and held on; he
pulled me until he broke my grasp…. He then ordered the driver to fasten
his horses … and come and help him put me out of the car … I screamed
murder with all my voice, and my companion screamed out “you’ll kill her;
don’t kill her” (Jennings 1854; Ripley 1993).
Furthermore, Jennings faced violence while living in Manhattan during the
New York City Draft Riots in 1863. While mobs of Irish immigrants lynched
freedmen in protest to the Conscription Act, she and her husband Charles
Graham fled to Queens with the help of a white pastor and undertaker to
bury their infant son in Cypress Hills Cemetery when he died from “con-
vulsions” (Hewitt 1990). Although the Draft Riots occurred after Jennings’
streetcar ejection, her experiences demonstrate how emancipation and the
outcome of her court case did not quell racial violence or enforcement of
desegregation ordinances in the antebellum North.
Parks also lived with fear of imminent racial violence growing up in
Alabama. She stated:
The KKK moved through the country where we lived burning churches,
schools, flogging, and killing. Grandfather stayed up to wait for them to
come into our house. He kept his shotgun within reach at all times. My aunt
and cousins came to our house at night. We could not … go to bed at night.
The doors and windows were boarded and nailed tight from the inside. I
stayed awake many nights keeping vigil with Grandpa (Parks, nd).
These instances demonstrate how the threat of racial violence undoubtedly
influenced Jennings’ and Parks’ involvement in civil rights activism in their
communities.
Third, Jennings and Parks were involved in Black Freedom activism
before their publicized protests to transit segregation. As a young woman,
Jennings was associated with abolitionist causes as an organist at her church.
Johnson (1968) noted that “the coloured churches of the city played an
important part” in fighting against slavery and segregation in New York
City (24). Assemblies and programs with themes such as “Elevation of the
African Race” and “The Duty of Colored People towards the overthrow of
American Slavery” often featured “Miss Jennings at the Organ” (Greider
2005). Moreover, she taught in the colored schools of the New York City
Board of Education that were formerly the African Free Schools (AFS).
Founded by the New York Manumission Society in 1797, the purpose of

5. A Century Apart 37
the AFS was to “ameliorate [the children of former slaves’] sufferings, and
ultimately to free him from bondage … by imparting to them the benefits
of an education, as seemed best calculated to fit them for the enjoyment
and right understanding of their future privileges, and relative duties”
(Andrews 1832, 7). Consequently, Jennings must have been aware of her
role in advocating for the equal rights of African Americans as an organist
and teacher.
Parks’ resistance to Montgomery segregation ordinances were grounded
in her education and experiential knowledge of civil rights protest. Theo-
haris (2013) notes that Parks was well-read and “inspired by histories of
black resistance, from Crispus Attucks and Clayton Powell, Jr. to Harriet
Tubman and Mary McLeod Bethune” (xi). In 1943, she began working
as a field secretary for the NAACP (Theoharis 2013, x). Moreover, Parks
had a history with the bus driver who called police to have her arrested on
December 1, 1955. Parks (1999) recalled:
That particular day was not the first time I had trouble with that particular
driver. He evicted me before, because I would not go around to the back
door after I was already onto the bus. The evening that I boarded the bus,
and noticed that he was the same driver, I decided to get on anyway.
These examples of Jennings and Parks’ involvement in their respective
acts of resistance demonstrate that they did not happen spontaneously.
Although their actions were not part of larger planned protests, McGuire
(2010) states that Parks seized an opportunity to resist segregation ordi-
nances that fateful day in 1955. Clearly, Jennings and Parks’ life experiences
and connections to civil rights organizations influenced their decisions to
protest unequal treatment and racial hostility.
Fourth, Jennings and Parks embodied the right “image” for their respec-
tive causes. Parks’ image as a middle-aged, married woman was seen by
civil rights organizations as a more palatable example of resistance to seg-
regation as opposed to other black women. For instance, when 15-year old
Claudette Colvin was arrested for sitting in a “whites-only” section of a
Montgomery bus nine months before Parks’ arrest, she was “deemed [an]
unsuitable symbol” of the movement, particularly after she after became
pregnant (Barnes 2009). According to Stewart (1997), Ralph D. Abernathy
explained that the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC),
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP),
and Montgomery Improvement Agency (MIA) “wanted [Mrs. Parks] to
become a symbolic of our protest movement (93–95).” Consequently, Parks
became a major icon of the mid-20th
century Civil Rights Movement when
these organizations used her case as the example to protest segregation
ordinances in the South.

6. 38 K. PERROTTA
Likewise, Jennings’ image was likely a major factor for why her case
was taken by the Culver, Parker, and Arthur law firm, and the outcome
of her lawsuit. Jennings’ father had political clout as the president of the
Legal Rights Association (LRA). The LRA was instrumental in raising
funds to hire the Culver firm and publicizing her ordeal on the streetcar
in abolitionist newspapers run by Horace Greeley and Frederick Doug-
lass. Her testimony was printed with the headline “OUTRAGE AMONG
COLORED PERSONS” in The New York Tribune and The Frederick Douglass’
Paper. Thomas Jennings declared that Elizabeth’s case was a class-action
suit for all African Americans that would “bring up the whole question of
our right … in public conveyances” (San Francisco Appeal 1863).
Moreover, Jennings was also aware of her class status. As evidenced in
her testimony, she told the Irish conductor, “I am a respectable person born
and raised in New York … [and] that I had never been insulted before while
going to church, and he was a good for nothing impudent fellow for insult-
ing decent persons” (Jennings 1854). Judge Rockwell ruled that the Third
Avenue Railway Company violated common carrier laws, which stipulated
that all paying passengers on public conveyances had an expectation of
punctual and safe accommodations (Welke 1995, 273). He instructed the
jury to find in Jennings’ favor, stating she was “respectable” and “sober,”
hence entitled to ride the streetcar.
Shortly after Jennings’ case, other black New Yorkers unsuccessfully
tried to challenge streetcar segregation. For instance, an unnamed African
American woman was ejected from a streetcar and insisted she had the
“right” to ride because of the “judicial” decision reached in Brooklyn
[referring to Jennings’ case] (Hewitt 1990, 399). Little is known about this
unnamed woman’s ordeal or if she was successful in filing a lawsuit against
a streetcar company. The fact that the woman was unnamed in her ordeal,
similar to how Claudette Colvin is an obscure civil rights activist, indicates
how one’s reputation, class, actions, and appearance can impact not only a
judge and jury’s decision, but also the court of public opinion.
These similarities highlight historic parallels between Parks and Jen-
nings in two ways. First, both were African American women who were
educated and aware of racial discrimination and methods of protest. They
were well-connected to organizations that supported their challenges to
segregation on public transportationand garnered praise from notable civil
rights leaders. Jennings’ court case and Parks’ arrest were cited as legal and
historical precedents in overturning racially discriminatory policies and
laws in the antebellum North and Jim Crow South. As a result, they are
credited with laying the groundwork for other activists to continue their
work of achieving civil rights for African Americans and other disenfran-
chised citizens.

7. A Century Apart 39
DIFFERENCES
Jennings and Parks share similarities with regard to their involvement in
civil rights activism and perceived images to further challenge segrega-
tion on public conveyances. However, there are also significant differences
between them. These differences include their socio-economic statuses,
how they were effected by their respective acts of resistance, and their por-
trayals in Black Freedom narratives that often appear in the social studies
curriculum.
First, Jennings and Parks hailed from very dissimilar socio-economic
backgrounds. Jennings was “fortuitous” for being a part of the “educated
Black middle class” by having resources to establish a career and receive
the backing of influential abolitionist organizations to aid in her legal
defense (Kelley 2010, 15-19). According to Douglass (1859), Jennings was
“the most learned of our female teachers in the city of New York, having
obtained mainly through her own labor, the honor of a diploma from the
Board of Education of said city.” Jennings (1890) acknowledged that she
was acquainted with “the many public spirited men” who were “dedicated
to constructing institutions and creating a lasting Black presence in New
York City.”
Conversely, Rosa Parks did not come from a politically or financially
influential family. Parks’ father was absent from much of her life, and she
bore great responsibilities caring for her younger brother and sick grand-
parents. These family obligations caused her to cease her formal schooling
when she was a teenager. Despite the involvement of organizations like the
NAACP, MIA, and SCLC in promoting her image to challenge racial seg-
regation, Parks did not have many educational or employment resources
at her disposal, which resulted in immense hardships after The Boycott.
Second, Jennings and Parks experienced the effects of their acts of resis-
tance in starkly different ways. Jennings was never arrested after being
ejected from the streetcar and continued to teach, even after getting
married and having a child. Typically, women during the 19th century who
married had to give up their teaching jobs; however, Jennings remained
employed under her married name with a child. Apparently, The New
York City Board of Education upheld the Greater New York State Charter
Section 1117 to “protect [teachers] against removal during good behavior
and competency,” as Jennings kept her job while also being a wife and
mother (Abbotts 1915, 1375). She remained involved in matters of civil
rights and education in her old age by becoming a co-founder of the first
black kindergarten in 1895. Ray (1895) documented the school’s “Graham
Library” as a place “where the children are developing sense-knowledge,
and learning to exercise that self-activity which lies at the root of this admi-
rable system” (251–252). Despite personal difficulties Jennings faced after

8. 40 K. PERROTTA
her ordeal with the death of her parents, son, and husband, she had ample
political, financial, and social support in pursuing her lawsuit, career, and
family life.
Rosa Parks did not have an easy life after her arrest. She was charged
with violating Chapter 6 section 11 of the Montgomery City Code of 1952
which stipulates:
It shall be unlawful for any passenger to refuse or fail to take a seat among
those assigned to the race to which he belongs, at the request of any such
employee in charge, if there is such a seat vacant (http://blogs.kentlaw.iit.
edu/library/exhibits/montgomery-1955/images-documents/montgomery-
city-code/).
Although her conviction was overturned, Parks endured being apprehended,
fingerprinted, had her mug shot taken, and held in jail until she made
bail. This experience posed major repercussions for her and her husband.
After the Boycott, Rosa and Raymond lost their jobs. The couple struggled
economically, moving to Virginia and eventually settling in Michigan.
Upon getting a job as a secretary for Congressman John Conyers from
1965-1988, Parks earned annual income of about $4,000 (Theorharis
2013, xvii). Additionally, both were plagued with serious health issues.
Rosa suffered from ulcers, and Raymond passed away in 1977 (Theoharis
2013). Although there is little evidence about Jennings’ financial stability
or health immediately after her case, Parks faced significant physical and
economic hardships after the Boycott that caused her and her husband to
relocate from Alabama.
Third, an important difference between Parks and Jennings is that the
former is a famous historical figure, but the latter is not. There are a few
reasons why Jennings is not a widely recognized person in United States
history. The media played a major role in publicizing Parks’ arrest and the
subsequent actions of the NAACP, MIA, and SCLC with the Montgomery
Bus Boycott. The rise of television during the 1950s provided a medium
for Americans to see the news unfold in places in the country that were
far away from where they lived. Images of police brutality, the speeches of
leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr., and reactions from politicians and the
public to the Boycott were reported regularly on television and print news.
Additionally, Parks’ papers are accessible to the public via the Library of
Congress. According to Theoharis (2013) and Lederle (2017), the collec-
tion houses thousands of Parks’ manuscript items and personal effects such
as photographs, letters, datebooks, medical records, bills, and political
buttons and stickers. As a result, scholars and educators can easily access
these documents to glean insights about the context of the Black Freedom
Movement that shaped Parks’ life and activism during the 20th century.

9. A Century Apart 41
Jennings’ ordeal and court case did not garner national attention, thus
limiting the documentation of her actions in response to her ejection from
the streetcar. Obvious differences in the 19th century media with regard
to the pace of newspaper reporting, printing, and distribution would have
hindered rapid notification of Jennings’ ejection from the streetcar and
verdict in New York Supreme Court. Welke (1995) explains that 19th-cen-
tury and early 20th-
century legal opinions in cases like Jennings’ were not
widely published outside of the cities in which these trials occurred (267).
Although abolitionist newspapers such as The Frederick Douglass’ Papers,
The New York Tribune, and The Brooklyn Eagle reported her ejection and
lawsuit, Hewitt (1990) notes that “other New York City dailies ignored
the case” (397). As a result, it is possible that Jennings’ case may not have
been known in other parts of Manhattan or the counties outside of New
York City.
Another factor for the limited availability of primary sources on Jen-
nings is that few documents written by or about her exist. Hewitt (1990)
lamented that barely a “thumbnail sketch” existed about her life. Perrotta
and Bohan (2013) also acknowledge in their biography of Jennings that
limited documents about Jennings are accessible. Since 2013, more docu-
ments have become available. A letter that Jennings wrote in The New York
Age (1890) about challenging racial discrimination in New York City was
digitized by Google Newspapers. The Kansas Historical Society possesses
an article by H. Cordelia Ray (1895) about the first black kindergarten
Jennings was involved in co-founding in Manhattan. New York City Direc-
tories and U.S. Censuses provide information about Jennings’ residence
and documentation of the deaths of family members. Sources accessed
from Ancestry.com uncovered Jennings’ Freedman Bank Account and her
last will and testament from New York City Probate Court. Therefore, con-
structing a broader illustration of the historical context of the 19th-century
Black Freedom Movement during Jennings’ life is possible if more docu-
ments are found.
SUMMARY
Elizabeth Jennings and Rosa Parks share some historical parallels with
regard to their lives and involvement in civil rights activism. Both women
were well-connected with influential organizations that supported their
actions and organized local action to challenge and overturn segregation-
ist policies concerning public transportation. They hailed from humble
family origins, and were highly involved in matters of Black Freedom that
influenced their actions in resisting transit segregation and their lives’
work promoting black education and politics. Image is a major factor in

10. 42 K. PERROTTA
why Parks and Jennings’ ordeals were chosen by local organizations to take
up the fight for desegregation to the public. Other black women, such as
Claudette Colvin and the unnamed woman from New York, were subjected
to ejection from mass transit, yet they are either unknown or relegated to
being a footnote in historical narratives.
Parks and Jennings are different in several key aspects. Jennings came
from a prominent abolitionist family with important ties to church and
abolitionist groups that raised funds to hire the prominent Culver law firm
to represent her case in New York Supreme Court. She had financial and
political resources at her disposal that supported her after her ejection
from the streetcar and in her career as a teacher even after she was married
with a child. Parks, however, did not possess the same socio-economic
resources Jennings did. She and her husband suffered from unemploy-
ment, financial stress, and illness after her arrest, eventually relocating to
Michigan.
Differences in 19th and 20th century media also impacted the extent to
which Parks and Jennings’ actions were publicized. Parks remains an iconic
civil rights figure greatly in part to the fact her arrest and the Montgomery
Bus Boycott was photographed and nationally televised. Conversely, Jen-
nings’ case was reported in local newspapers and did not garner widespread
attention with regard to African American civil rights in the antebellum
North. Additionally, archival sources such as letters, diaries, and other
examples of Jennings’ effects have yet to be discovered. As a result, the
lack of documents about Jennings’ life before, during, and after her court
case presents challenges to fully contextualize comparisons to Rosa Parks.
IMPLICATIONS
Upon evaluation of primary and secondary sources about Rosa Parks and
Elizabeth Jennings, the researcher finds that historical comparisons drawn
between them are not completely accurate. The historical contexts that
surround Jennings and Parks’ actions are similar in that both lived and
witnessed racial violence and discrimination during two pivotal points
in the Black Freedom Movement in United States history: the decade
before the Civil War and the decade following World War II. However,
the different socio-economic and political backgrounds from which Parks
and Jennings came from highlights how the experiences of black activists
were more nuanced with regard to how they personally benefitted and suf-
fered as a result of their actions. Therefore, if comparisons between Parks
and Jennings continue to be drawn, then education history scholars and
practitioners must be cognizant of how to re-conceptualize the contexts
in which their lives and activism are situated in Black Freedom narratives

11. A Century Apart 43
of the social studies curriculum. Such re-conceptualizations are important
in order to “teach students to appreciate the particular policies, institu-
tions, worldviews, and circumstances that shape a given moment in time”
(Reisman and Wineburg 2010, 202).
Contextualization is a major aspect of historical inquiry. According to the
National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) College, Career, and Civics
Framework (C3 Framework), contextualization involves “understanding the
interrelation of patterns of change [that] requires evaluating the context
within which events unfolded in order not to view events in isolation, and
to be able to assess the significance of specific individuals, groups, and
developments” (46). Although contextualization is important to promote
historical inquiry, many learning standards and curricular materials lack
thorough analysis of the historical contexts in which historical people lived.
For example, Monte Sano, De La Paz, and Felton (2014) state that the
Common Core Standards (CCS) for English Language Arts and History/
Social Studies do not prescribe contextualization as a historical reading
practice (8). Furthermore, Bickford and Rich (2014) and Bickford and
Schuette’s (2016) research shows that many children’s literature and trade
books omit Parks’ life-long involvement in the Civil Rights Movement
and acknowledgement of others in the continuum of the Black Freedom
Movement. Sassi’s (2007) article about Jennings highlights the violence she
endured during her removal from the streetcar, but erroneously states that
transit companies complied with desegregation ordinances after her court
case. These examples are problematic, for without thorough contextualiza-
tion, students can learn a sanitized history that renders figures like Rosa
Parks and Elizabeth Jennings as exceptions to the broader experiences and
contributions of others throughout history.
Education history scholars and instructors can mitigate misrepresenta-
tion of comparisons between Rosa Parks and Elizabeth Jennings in several
ways. First, Bickford and Scheutte (2016) encourage educators to be aware
of gaps in the historical contexts in order to foster critical thinking in
historical research and instruction. Perrotta and Bohan (2013) argue that
the inclusion of underrepresented historical figures, such as Jennings, in
mainstream narratives of the Black Freedom Movement could enhance
comparisons drawn between famous and non-famous historical figures.
Cognizance to the larger contexts in which Jennings and Parks lived may
enable history education researchers and instructors to supplement exist-
ing narratives with primary and secondary sources that can engage students
in “active scrutiny” of the continuum of the Black Freedom Movement in
United States historical narratives (Bickford and Schuette 2016, 27).
Second, comparisons between Parks and Jennings in historical nar-
ratives may be improved with the implementation of historical empathy
pedagogies. According to Endacott and Brooks (2013), historical empathy

12. 44 K. PERROTTA
involves 1) identification of historical contexts, 2) consideration of dif-
fering perspectives that appears in texts, and 3) the making of effective
connections to historical content. Perrotta (2016) found in her research that
middle and secondary students were able to contextualize Elizabeth Jen-
nings’ streetcar ejection and lawsuit by connecting her experience to Rosa
Parks through class discussion, first-person narrative writing, and debate.
Moreover, she found that when students deliberated socio-economic and
political factors for why racial discrimination was practiced during the 19th
and 20th centuries through source analyses, they were able to contextual-
ize not only the experiences of Jennings, but themselves and their peers
with regard to racial discrimination of these contemporary times. These
findings are in alignment with Bickford Schuette’s (2016) recommenda-
tions that researchers and teachers provide students with opportunities to
engage in ownership of historical study in order to fully contextualize the
historical empathy strategies and take contemporary significance of the
comparisons between Rosa Parks and Elizabeth Jennings.
CONCLUSION
The “nineteenth century Rosa Parks” moniker Jennings is given in schol-
arly and popular publications is understandable, but misleading. There
are similarities between Parks and Jennings with regard to their family
origins, their involvement in civil rights activism, their image in furthering
the Black Freedom Movement, and bravery resisting segregation despite
the threat of mortal violence. These women, however, were different with
regard to their social statuses, the repercussions of their resistance to segre-
gation, and how they are remembered in Black Freedom narratives in the
social studies curriculum. Although comparisons between Rosa Parks and
Elizabeth Jennings are not completely accurate, these parallels have merit
in teaching and researching the historical context of the Black Freedom
Movement in United States history. By applying aspects of the C3 Frame-
work, teachers can present multiple primary and secondary sources about
Jennings and Parks in order to provide students with tools to 1) evaluate
how historical figures are portrayed in historical narratives, 2) consider
the omission of people and events in narratives impacts historical context,
and 3) demonstrate historical empathy by identifying historical contexts
and perspectives in sources that can shape affective connections to content.
Elizabeth Jennings and Rosa Parks were two extraordinary women who
made significant contributions to the Black Freedom Movement. Their
experiences highlight how the legacy of slavery and segregation was not
just a Southern problem, but an American problem during the 19th
and 20th
centuries. By continuing investigations of the contexts of their lives and

13. A Century Apart 45
actions, scholars, students, and educators can continue Jennings and Parks’
work towards achieving racial justice and equality for generations to come.
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