via Public Domain
When Rosa Parks refused to forfeit her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus on December 1,1955, a change rippled through her community.
Her quiet defiant act against segregation poured fuel on the fiery resolve within Black community members to do the same with a 381-day bus boycott. But that’s not all she did.
Parks’ resolve inspired a generation to demand better than the status quo.
So when state officials created the Women’s Tribute Statue Commission responsible for “allow[ing] our state to continue telling its entire story; honoring the leaders of the past, while committing to progress and equality for the future,” according to state Representative Laura Hall of Huntsville, Rosa Parks topped the list of confirmed honorees.
Parks’ statue will be funded and designed through the commission, and then placed on state capitol grounds - so that no one visiting nor any lawmaker charged with representing the needs of the community will ever forget the lessons of our past.
The presence of her statue will serve as a strong reminder to be courageous, honor what is right, and in her own words, to be “known as a person who is concerned about freedom and equality and justice and prosperity for all people.”