When the opportunity arose, our staff recognized that the Rosa Parks bus would be an extraordinary addition to the museum—though it would be a long journey to acquire and restore it.
The bus identification number was not recorded in any official documents when Rosa Parks was arrested, so years later, many museums and organizations were searching for the bus, but no one was quite sure which bus it was.
When bus was retired in the early s, Roy H. Summerford of Montgomery bought it. At the time, company employees told him that it was the Rosa Parks bus. Summerford and his descendants kept the bus in a field and used it to store lumber and tools. When Summerford passed away, the bus became the property of his daughter and son-in-law, Vivian and Donnie Williams. Although the Williamses knew that this had been identified as the Rosa Parks bus, they had no documents to prove it.
Robert Lifson, President of Mastronet, an Internet auction house, decided he wanted to auction off the bus for Mr. He began a search for documents authenticating the bus—and he found one. Montgomery bus station manager Charles H.
Cummings had maintained a scrapbook of newspaper articles during the —56 Montgomery bus boycott. The son and wife of Mr. Cummings, now deceased, confirm that he jotted down the bus number because he felt the events were so important. Often, as in this case, historical truth is not officially recorded, but is passed along in private memoirs and oral tradition.
In September , an article in the Wall Street Journal announced that the Rosa Parks bus would be auctioned online in October, and we immediately began researching this opportunity.
We spoke to people involved in the original events, to those who planned other museum exhibits, and to historians. A forensic document examiner was hired to see if the scrapbook was authentic. A Museum conservator went to Montgomery to personally examine the bus. Convinced that this was the Rosa Parks bus, we decided to bid on the bus in the Internet auction. At the same time, our team also bought the scrapbook and a Montgomery City Bus Lines driver's uniform.
Next came the restoration. After sitting unprotected in a field for 30 years, it is not surprising that The Rosa Parks bus needed a substantial amount of work. Unable to find work, they eventually left Montgomery and moved to Detroit, Michigan along with Parks' mother.
There, Parks made a new life for herself, working as a secretary and receptionist in U. Representative John Conyer's congressional office. She also served on the board of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. The organization runs "Pathways to Freedom" bus tours, introducing young people to important civil rights and Underground Railroad sites throughout the country.
In , she published Quiet Strength , which includes her memoirs and focuses on the role that religious faith played throughout her life. The song featured the chorus:. In , a judge dismissed the defamation claims.
On April 14, , the case was settled. On October 24, , Parks quietly died in her apartment in Detroit, Michigan at the age of She had been diagnosed the previous year with progressive dementia, which she had been suffering from since at least Parks' death was marked by several memorial services, among them, lying in honor at the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, D.
She was interred between her husband and mother at Detroit's Woodlawn Cemetery, in the chapel's mausoleum. Shortly after her death, the chapel was renamed the Rosa L.
Parks Freedom Chapel. The following year, she was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest award given by the U. February 4, marked what would have been Parks' th birthday.
In celebration, a commemorative U. Postal Service stamp, called the Rosa Parks Forever stamp and featuring a rendition of the famed activist, debuted. He remembered Parks, according to The New York Times , by saying "In a single moment, with the simplest of gestures, she helped change America and change the world. We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us! Subscribe to the Biography newsletter to receive stories about the people who shaped our world and the stories that shaped their lives.
Claudette Colvin is an activist who was a pioneer in the civil rights movement in Alabama during the s. She refused to give up her seat on a bus months before Rosa Parks' more famous protest. Nixon was a Pullman porter and civil rights leader who worked with Rosa Parks and Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. Abolitionist and women's rights activist Sojourner Truth is best known for her speech on racial inequalities, "Ain't I a Woman?
Jo Ann Robinson organized a city bus boycott by African Americans in Montgomery, Alabama, in that changed the course of civil rights in America. Susan B. Anthony was a suffragist, abolitionist, author and speaker who was the president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Ida B. Wells was an African American journalist and activist who led an anti-lynching crusade in the United States in the s. Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier when he became the first Black athlete to play Major League Baseball after joining the Brooklyn Dodgers in Rosa Parks was a civil rights activist who refused to surrender her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama.
Her defiance sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Sergei Kirov, a leader of the Russian Revolution and a high-ranking member of the Politburo, is shot to death at his Leningrad office by Communist Party member Leonid Nikolayev, likely at the instigation of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. As no presidential candidate had received a majority of the total electoral votes in the election of , Congress decides to turn over the presidential election to the House of Representatives, as dictated by the 12th Amendment to the U.
In the November Shortly after 11 a. This was no ordinary hole—it connected the two ends of an underwater tunnel linking Great Britain with the European mainland for the A fire at a grade school in Chicago kills 90 students on December 1, In , there were well over 1, students enrolled at the school, which occupied a large, old building. Twelve nations, including the United States and the Soviet Union, sign the Antarctica Treaty, which bans military activity and weapons testing on that continent.
It was the first arms control agreement signed in the Cold War period. Since the s a number of nations, including Sign up now to learn about This Day in History straight from your inbox. Congress and speaks some of his most memorable words as he discusses the Northern war effort.
Lincoln used the address to present a moderate message concerning his policy towards slavery. Just ten weeks before, he
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