FIRST EDITION OF ROSA PARKS: MY STORY, WARMLY INSCRIBED BY ROSA PARKS TO LUCY CAMPBELL, A FRIEND AND FELLOW CIVIL RIGHT ACTIVIST WHO ARCHIVED THE EVENTS OF THE MONTGOMERY BUS BOYCOTT

PARKS, Rosa. Rosa Parks: My Story. With Jim Haskins. New York: Dial Books, (1992). Octavo, original half purple cloth, supplied dust jacket.

First edition, first printing, of Parks' autobiography, signed in the year of publication by her in green ink to a friend and fellow civil rights activist: "3/5/92. Rosa Parks. Love to Mrs. Campbell." This copy belonged to Alfonso and Lucy Campbell, friends of Rosa Parks, both of whom were instrumental in the Montgomery Bus Boycott as chair of the transportation committee and as the boycott's archivist, respectively.

"Actually, no one can understand the action of Mrs. Parks unless he realizes that eventually the cup of endurance runs over, and the human personality cries out, 'I can take it no longer'" (Martin Luther King, Jr.). "The mother of the Civil Rights Movement," Parks refused to relinquish her bus seat to a white man on December 1, 1955, and sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott. With numerous black-and-white photographic illustrations. With first printing dust jacket supplied. This copy is inscribed to Lucy Campbell (and this book was co-owned by her and her husband, Alfonso, as indicated by her owner inscriptions and both of their names written on the edges of the text block). Lucy Barnes Campbell was a civil rights activist and longtime librarian at Alabama State University, Montgomery, and later at Hampton University in Virginia (both HBCUs). Campbell was heavily involved in a number of equal rights organizations, including the United Negro College Fund and the NAACP. Campbell was also married to Alfonso Campbell, who chaired the transportation committee during the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Alfonso Campbell was Supervisor of Transportation at Alabama State as well as the owner of a small used car business, which put him in a strategic position to both organize ridesharing during the boycott and provide additional vehicles at key times. During the boycott, Lucy Campbell worked as a historian and archivist, recording the events of the boycott and the unique experiences of its participants. The Campbells were friends with a number of the major civil rights leaders of the day, including Rosa Parks, who they originally knew from her work as a seamstress well before she became an icon of the civil rights movement. This book also bears a pen notation on the front pastedown, likely in Lucy's hand, that reads: "See p. 139. Lucy & Al at attendance at Mass Meeting." On page 139, there is a handwritten notation above a photograph of a mass meeting of bus boycotters where Martin Luther King, Jr. was introduced as the new president of the Montgomery Improvement Association that reads: "Al & I were there!"

Book fine, dust jacket near-fine with only light rubbing to extremities. A lovely inscribed copy with a wonderful association.