On February 27th, 2013, Rosa Parks, the civil rights icon, made history again when her statue was unveiled in the US Capitol’s National Statuary Hall, the first full-length statue of an African American in the Capitol.
Rosa Parks (1913-2005) was born and raised in Alabama. She lived on a farm, attended the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and studied at a rural school. Her mother taught her to sew at a young age, and she later became a seamstress.
In 1932, she married Raymond Parks, a barber and member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Montgomery. Several years later, Parks also joined NAACP and became the secretary.
On December 1st, 1955, Parks boarded the bus in downtown Montgomery and sat in the first row of the black section. When the white section of the bus went full, the driver ordered Parks and other passengers to give up their seats and move to the back. Parks refused. She was removed from the bus, got arrested, and convicted. Several days later, Montgomery community leaders launched the Montgomery bus boycott that ended after a year with the US Supreme Court ruling in Browder v. Gayle that bus segregation was unconstitutional.
Even though she faced many hardships and life threats as an activist, Parks never stopped advocating and fighting for equal rights.
She passed away in 2005 and became the first woman and only the second African-American to lie in state in the US Capitol rotunda. Shortly after, the US Congress authorized the placement of her statue in the US Capitol, the first time since 1873. It is not part of the National Statuary Hall Collection and does not represent a state.
Rob Firmin co-designed it with Eugene Daub, who also sculpted it, depicting Parks in bronze, sitting, wearing the same outfit she wore the day she refused to vacate her seat. The pedestal is made of Raven Black granite and inscribed simply with her name and life dates, “Rosa Parks 1913–2005.”
President Barak Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and the nation’s leaders participated in the unveiling ceremony alongside fellow activists and Parks family members.
President Obama said: “Rosa Parks held no elected office. She possessed no fortune; lived her life far from the formal seats of power. And yet today, she takes her rightful place among those who’ve shaped this nation’s course.”
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