Rosa Parks - can someone sanity check me?

[ifancyagreencard]

Not a goady post; I just genuinely don't want to be a topic of a thread later on the weekend about use of inappropriate or incorrect language/terminology when the children take their books home.

Involved in a voluntary activity on the weekend which will touch on America. It's aimed at KS1 and I've used the following phrase in a workbook:

"Rosa Parks was a very brave American who fought for black people to have better lives"

Is the language / phrasing appropriate? Cheers

I agree @Theinvestigator and she was a teenager incredibly brave at the time.

Whilst Rosa Parks is an incredible person, I'm fascinated by the effect of the public transport boycott organised as a result which caused real upset to the white business owners. It's curious how that bit is less often reported in on the telling of the tale.

Imagine if an oppressed section of society were to do that in the UK ?

African Americans and Blacks is the current term that seems to make all happy these days. (I am on the African American Parent Representative Committee LAUSD and we spent multiple meetings discussing this) People of Color specifically references anyone who isn't white (although not generally used to refer to people from China/Japan etc. which confusingly we call Asians in the USA and call people from India...Indians, and the term oriental is now considered pejorative).

Definitely say USA, not America.
Rosa Parks is specifically associated with fighting against racist laws and equality. I'm not sure that saying she fought for "better lives" quite gets it right.

If you are in the UK, and it’s ks1 you’re going to need to make sure that the children are aware of exactly what you mean by African Americans. The average British 5 year old is a lot less likely to have come across that terminology than than most US 5 year olds.