If the real Rosa is more politically aware than the mythical one, and if her action happens in context with a pre-existing situation rather than coming like a bolt out of the blue, does that make Rosa less of a hero? Of course not. If we help students understand the realities of the world in which Rosa lived, they can then see how real the dangers were that she faced. The real Rosa remembered how the murderers of Emmet Till were set free by an all-white jury just two months earlier, and how an NAACP activist in Mississippi was murdered just two weeks before she refused to give up her seat. The real Rosa knew her husband may have been right when she told him what she had done and he responded, "The white folks will kill you." The real Rosa was not surprised when she got fired from her job, and her husband too was fired from his job, all because she said no.