Rosa Louise Parks Sculpture, AKA “Stand Up for Rosa Parks,” depicts the mother of the civil rights movement standing next to a bus seat; it was the world’s first standing statue of Parks. It is located at the entrance to Rosa Parks Circle, a park in downtown Grand Rapids, designed by the renowned artist Maya Lin in 1999. Eight years later, the Grand Rapids Community Relations Commission chose Ed Dwight to sculpt a statue in Parks’ honor. Dwight is a Colorado-based sculptor and the first African-American trained by NASA to be an astronaut; he has created many statues of African-American activists, including Harriet Tubman, whose sculpture is part of the Underground Railroad Memorial in Battle Creek, Michigan. Dwight portrayed Parks standing upright, symbolizing her bold action of taking a stand for civil rights. He intended to immortalize Parks as a monumental figure, capturing the essence of her resilience and determination in the face of injustice. Upon its dedication on Sep 30, 2010, it became the first statue of an African-American in Grand Rapids. Rosa Parks (1913-2005) became a civil rights movement icon in 1955 when her arrest, caused by refusing to give up her bus seat, launched the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, which led to the desegregation of public transportation. In her lifetime, Parks fought against discrimination and segregation and fought for equal rights for African Americans. She promoted equality in different fields, including fair housing, equal education, labor rights, police abuse awareness, and freedom of thought and speech. She died of natural causes when she was 92 years old. Read more...