Self-care is a bit of a buzzword these days. But for Rosa Parks, it was a deliberate practice and a means of survival in her later years. Long after she refused to give up her bus seat in Montgomery, Parks practiced yoga as a way to support her body and mind. This little-known part of her history is a piece of a bigger picture: Black activists have used self-care as a tool for decades.

After the bus arrest, Parks’ life was changed forever. She became a public figure and “the mother of the civil rights movement,” a title that she never got used to, according to her autobiography, “Rosa Parks: My Story.” She also faced several personal challenges that are often left out of her narrative. Harassment and threats after the bus arrest caused her and husband, Raymond Parks, to leave Alabama for Detroit. They both struggled to find steady work and even had to live separately for a time while Rosa worked in Virginia as a hostess at The Holly Tree Inn, the campus guest house at Hampton University. In 1977, she lost her husband and brother within three months of each other while her mother was also battling cancer. 

All the while, Parks was battling health issues of her own. Still, she continued to organize and speak around the country until late into her senior years. For that, she needed to take care of her body.

Dr. Stephanie Y. Evans, a scholar of what she describes as Black women’s historical wellness, suggests that Parks’ relationship with yoga was a key factor in how she was able to continue forward. Evans has documented Parks’ reflections on yoga and wellness in her book, “Black Women’s Yoga History: Memoirs of Inner Peace.” Her archival research found that Parks’ interest in yoga grew in her later years while recovering from decades of physical and emotional strain. 

“She learned community care at home and carried that forward late into her life. She was a part of the 1970s Black yoga revival and used that trend in service of her community in Detroit and her leadership across the country,” Evans said. 

Parks’s niece and nephew also noted its importance to her. In their memoir, “Our Auntie Rosa: The Family of Rosa Parks Remembers Her Life and Lessons,” they describe how, despite often being the oldest woman in the class, yoga brought her joy and peace. 

Parks’ turn toward wellness was not in isolation, but part of a long history of Black women grounding their political work in practices of self-care. Figures like Audre Lorde, Fannie Lou Hamer and Angela Davis all wrote about the physical toll of their activism. Many turned to what people might now call self-care long before the term was popularized, whether through journaling, prayer, or, in Parks’ case, yoga. For these women, caring for their bodies was not indulgence, it was strategy.

“Mrs. Parks was one part of a large effort to build communities of social justice workers,” Evans said. “Her self care practices were intimately connected to justice work as a practice of communal care. Yoga was personal for her, but also a way to sow health into her communities.” 

Today, that lineage is visible in the work of organizers who center wellness as part of their liberation efforts. In Chicago, organizer and yoga practitioner Tameka Walton founded Restored Hope to support Black women navigating trauma and violence. Walton’s work reflects a broader shift toward recognizing healing as integral to justice movements.

“I think for Black women, especially, we automatically feel like we’re being selfish if we’re taking any moment to just be. But what I’ve come to realize is that if my cup isn’t filled, especially in the line of work that I do, then I cannot pour into anybody else. It’s almost reckless to continue pouring into others when I have nothing,” Walton said. “I’m tied to my own freedom, my own liberation.”

As more modern organizers reclaim practices like yoga, Parks’ story offers a reminder that wellness has long existed alongside activism, even if it didn’t always have a name. Her commitment to caring for herself, in the midst of grief and ongoing struggle, complicates the one-dimensional image often attached to her. It reveals the depth of the endurance required of Black women activists and the ways they have found to restore themselves in order to continue the work.

“To know that Rosa Parks utilized something that allowed her to go inward first before she went out for the world, it completely makes sense,” Walton said. “You disconnect from the world when you practice yoga. Why wouldn’t she need that?”