Rosa Parks' family shares fond memories in new book

Author and niece of Rosa Parks, Sheila McCauley Keys of Northville is on a national tour promoting “Our Auntie Rosa: The Family of Rosa Parks Remembers Her Life and Lessons," (Penguin, $24.95).(Photo: Cassandra Spratling Detroit Free Press)DETROIT -- There's something Sheila McCauley Keys wants you to know about her auntie, Rosa Parks."We want people to know the woman behind the iconic figure," Keys says, in a conversation from her Northville, Mich., home. "She had a family and her family loved her and was close to her."Keys hopes to ensure the public knows of that relationship with a book of memories she edited, written by her and her siblings, the children of Parks' only brother, Sylvester McCauley.She's on a national tour promoting Our Auntie Rosa: The Family of Rosa Parks Remembers Her Life and Lessons (Penguin, $24.95).The book shares fond memories of the woman they called "Auntie Rosa," including recipes she loved, experiences they shared and stories they treasured."We all remember how warm, how giving, how nurturing she was," Keys says.Keys recalled that years ago after she gave birth to her first child, Parks spent a week with her in New Jersey where she lived at the time. Keys' own mother had died and Parks recognized that Keys, a new mom, needed mothering herself."She came when I needed her and she stayed a week," Keys recalls. "We'd sit up talking and drinking tea in our pajamas.""She taught us so many lessons ... to treat people the way you want to be treated," Keys said. "Her and her mother, our grandmother, Leona McCauley, would give the shirt off their backs if a person needed it."Parks also was the kind of person who didn't take kindly to being mistreated, even as a child. One essay in the book recalls Parks telling how as a child she challenged a white boy who bullied her."She said, 'sometimes you have to do what you have to do,' " Keys says.The book also sheds new light on the incident that cemented Parks' role as the mother of the modern day civil rights movement and the beginnings of the 1955-56 bus boycott in Montgomery.According to an essay in the book, Montgomery law required that there be a row between whites and blacks. Parks was sitting in the "colored" section as required. But when a white man sat in the row closest to her, it was then that bus driver told Parks to move — not so the white man could sit where she was sitting as has often been reported — but so there would be a row separating the white man from Parks and the other black passengers.No matter; this much is certain.Parks had to do what she had to do; she remained seated."I don't want people to ever forget what she did," Keys said. "But I also want my children and grandchildren to know that her legacy is our legacy."Keys also hopes the book puts to rest news stories after Parks' death in 2005 that she says left the erroneous impression that Parks was not close to her blood relatives.Keys' Northville home is adorned with family photos of her parents, Parks and other family members."There were people who wanted her family to be seen as nonexistent and that wasn't true at all," Keys says. "Our family has been very tolerant and very quiet. We decided to write the book and put these remembrances down so people could get a better picture of her. She was more than a woman who sat down on a bus."Ford GT appears at Chicago Auto Show – in silverFeb 13, 2015