The First Rosa

The name of civil-rights champion Dr. Rosa Parks is well known to history. But there was another Rosa, “a black teacher with liberating dreams,” with an inspiring story of her own.

“The First Rosa”, produced by The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, is a film that will enlighten the Church to Dr. Rosa J. Young’s remarkable history as a pioneer Lutheran educator and missionary who, alongside the Rev. Nils J. Bakke, planted dozens of historically black Lutheran schools and chapels in the American South.

See the long odds they faced—struggles with strident critics, the Ku Klux Klan, even an invasion of boll weevils—before emerging with a glorious victory.