The U.S. Air Force on December 1, 2020, the 65th anniversary of Parks’ 1955 protest, unveiled a sculpture of her at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, adding to an array of memorials that honor the civil rights icon, who died in 2005 at the age of 92.
This year ShareAmerica is highlighting some of the memorials honoring Parks’ brave protest.
Rosa Parks’ refusal to relinquish her seat to a white man on a segregated bus in 1955 inspired the civil rights movement in the United States.
Parks worked as a seamstress at Maxwell Field in the 1940s before her protest in Montgomery, Alabama, prompted a citywide bus boycott, a watershed event in the civil rights movement.
She later credited her experience at the racially integrated federal facility with showing her a world without the discriminatory policies, known as Jim Crow laws, that were common in the South.
“You might just say Maxwell opened my eyes up,” Parks said. “It was an alternative to the ugly policies of Jim Crow.”
Each February Americans honor the achievements of Parks and others during Black History Month.
Banner image: A new Rosa Parks sculpture created by Ian Mangum, a 42nd Force Support Squadron team member, was erected at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. (U.S. Air Force/Senior Airman Charles Welty)
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