Rosa Parks Honored With Statue

Story by Marie Owens. Photo courtesy of WJLA.

DEC. 6, 2019: On December 1, 2019, Rosa Parks was honored as Montgomery County, Alabama unveiled a statue of her. This is very important to many African American men and women. The statue is almost 30 feet from where Rosa Parks made history on a bus 64 years ago. 

Rosa Parks is important to history. On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks said no to sitting in the back of the bus because of her skin color. In 1955, African American people had to sit in the back of the bus because of their skin color or race, while Caucasians sat in the front of the bus. When the Caucasian seats were filled, some of the African Americans had to give up their seats. There was a lot that African American people couldn’t do that Caucausins could do.

Rosa Parks thought this was unfair so she refused to give a seat to a Caucasian man. Later the bus driver (James Blake) decided to call the police. She went to jail and her jail number was 7053. That’s why sometimes in African American celebration plays, they might have a woman with a plate number that reads 7053. Rosa Parks is also known as “The Mother of the Civil Rights Movement”. The United States Congress called her “the first lady of civil rights”. Rosa Parks started the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The boycott was led Martin Luther King Jr.  

So, if you go to Montgomery, Alabama, beg your parents to take you to see the Rosa Parks statue. Rosa Parks would be honored to have you visit.  

Marie Owens is a 5th-grade scholar at Friendship Woodridge International School.