Obama unveils Capitol statue of rights icon Rosa Parks
US: Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus, so it was
fitting that her statue unveiled Wednesday by President Barack Obama in
the US Capitol depicts her in the position from which she launched a
civil rights revolution.
Congressional leaders, dozens of relatives and several hundred guests
joined Obama as Parks, represented by a nine-foot (2.7-meter) bronze
statue, took her rightful place among the nation's heroes depicted in
Statuary Hall.
The statue is the first of an African-American woman in the US
Capitol.
“This morning we celebrate a seamstress slight in stature, but mighty
in courage,” Obama said in tribute to the woman who, on December 1, 1955
at age 42, refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a crowded
bus in Montgomery, Alabama.
“In a single moment with the simplest of gestures she helped change
America and change the world,” the president said.
James Clyburn, the most senior African-American in Congress,
described Parks as “the first lady of civil rights, the mother of the
movement, the saint of an endless struggle.” Blacks were freed from
slavery 150 years ago when president Abraham Lincoln signed the
Emancipation Proclamation, but it took another century marred by
second-class citizenship, racial violence, and voter suppression before
the civil rights movement took root, culminating with the Civil Rights
Act of 1964.
“As America shapes its future it struggles with its past -- a past in
which equality was our principle but not always our practice,” said
Democratic Senate majority leader Harry Reid as he noted the country's
continuing efforts to “eradicate slavery's unsavory successors: racism
and inequality.” “Without the determination and sacrifice of Rosa Parks,
this presidency... and so much of the progress we have made to perfect
our union would not have been possible. So today a nation pays enduring
tribute to the woman who moved the world when she refused to move from
her seat.” Parks is depicted in the statue as many Americans envision
her: sitting, hands folded across her lap and clutching her handbag, her
hair pulled back, and staring steadily out from behind rimless glasses.
But she was no meek woman. She fought hard for her right to vote,
fighting a voter literacy test skewed against African-Americans.
AFP |
