Reflecting on the legacy of Rosa Parks 69 years on from the Bus Boycott

By refusing to give up her bus seat to a white passenger, Rosa Parks sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a pivotal event in the American Civil Rights Movement. Her arrest sparked a 30-month mass protest that ended with the US Supreme Court ruling that segregation on public buses was unconstitutional. The boycott demonstrated the potential for nonviolent mass protest to successfully challenge racial segregation and served as an example for other southern campaigns that followed.

Parks’ bravery and determination during that December resonate with the themes of resilience and change, displaying the power of standing up against injustice, and the enduring spirit of fighting for equality, which led to significant legal and social changes in the United States. As we celebrate this month, we honour the legacy of Rosa Parks and her contribution to the pursuit of civil rights.

Patricia Mckeller is Associate Dean of Undergraduate Law at University of London, and shares the link between Parks’ pivotal role, and this area of study:

Rosa Parks played a pivotal role in advancing human rights and her legacy is far reaching. In the undergraduate law degree from University of London we offer a module in International Protection of Human Rights which concerns the protection afforded to individuals under international law. It also examines the fundamental concepts, principles, theories and philosophies underpinning the law in international human rights. This module, along with others on the undergraduate law degree, equips students for the challenge of injustice.

The University of London is also a long been a beacon of progressive education – including being the first UK university to offer degrees to women – and its Laws programmes represent this legacy. One of our LLB’s most famous alumni is Nelson Mandela, revered anti-apartheid activist and former President of South Africa. For many of the 27 years of his imprisonment, Mandela studied law as a University of London student through distance and flexible learning. He passed the London Intermediate exams in 1963, but the conditions imposed by the South African authorities prevented him from completing his degree.

Shortly after his release in 1990, Mandela made a visit to the US to draw support for the anti-apartheid movement; Rosa Parks was invited to be part of the group that welcomed him, recognising their shared commitment to radical transformative change.

The University of London Laws programmes’ deep connection to fighting injustice continues today, providing access to education for the incarcerated around the world. Since 2010, the UG Laws team has been working with Justice Defenders (formerly the African Prisons Project) to open up opportunities for inmates to study for University of London qualifications, providing learning materials, academic visits, some bursaries and other subventions on the costs of study.

And the themes of challenging injustice are embedded in the programmes themselves – for example, the LLB’s International Protection of Human Rights module examines the principles, theories, and mechanisms of international human rights law, focusing on the protection of individuals under international law and covering issues such as the human rights of women, refugees and the elimination of racial discrimination.

Many of the LLB’s modules can also be studied as individual short courses for those interested in this area but not currently looking to undertake a full degree.

For those pursuing postgraduate study, the MA Human Rights (also available as a PGDip or PGCert) is designed and run by activist scholars at the Human Rights Consortium, while many of the modules feature videos or dialogue with guest human rights practitioners, who share their insights.