DETROIT - s4story -- Rosa L. Parks always spoke the truth. However, myths and untruths always follow in the wake of historic figures. Today, only Elaine Eason Steele has standing as the unquestioned source for the firsthand truth regarding Mrs. Parks.

By Her Side is a revealing autobiography whose timing cannot be more vital, given the 'code red' state of our democracy as the recent midterm elections demonstrated, despite the less-than-lethal results. We must not relent in confronting the attack on civil rights, voting rights, and the constitution itself.

Mrs. Rosa Parks and Elaine Eason Steele met in Detroit in 1961, when Elaine was a 16-year-old high school student. For 45 years, until her passing in 2005, Mrs. Steele—Co-founder of the 'Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development'— was Mrs. Parks' closest friend, senior assistant, principal advisor and confidante, fellow civil rights activist, and, as Mrs. Parks described her, her spiritual daughter. They were just that close. Now, Mrs. Steele shares her unique eyewitness view of history.

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It is unfortunate that only after Mrs. Parks' death have some engaged in revisionist history and regrettable internecine arguments regarding her singularly critical role—an ordained role whose relevance and impact endures.

By Her Side, Mrs. Steele's new autobiography explodes the myths and untruths arising since Mrs. Parks' passing—myths that seek to diminish the fact her selfless act was the spark that ignited the historic Montgomery Bus Boycott—led by her friend, of many years, Mrs. Johnnie Carr, whom she met in the fifth grade. During those years, she also met E. D. Nixon, The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and others.

Mrs. Steele makes clear, in By Her Side, that Mrs. Parks' activism well-predates her refusal to surrender her bus seat on December 1, 1955. In one infamous case, she represented Mrs. Recy Taylor, a 24-year-old black mother raped by six white men in 1944. Another is the Scottsboro Boys case which Mrs. Parks' long-activist-husband, Raymond Parks represented.

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Mrs. Parks' selfless act in 1955, then age 42, on a Montgomery bus, resulted in the organization, four days later, of the historic Montgomery Bus Boycott; no other incident had before. Elaine Eason Steele's book, By Her Side, presents a true view from the inside, not one born of speculation. It is time to set the record straight.

Now available at Amazon, and Barnes & Noble
See more at ByHerSideBook.com

Email: media@byhersidebook.com

​Media Phone Contact: Sheila West 313.965.0606