Equal Justice Initiative unveils Rosa Parks statue in downtown Montgomery

A statue honoring civil rights icon Rosa Parks has been unveiled at the Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Plaza in downtown Montgomery.

EJI founder Bryan Stevenson unveiled the statue at a ceremony this morning.

The statue is the first of three that will be erected in Legacy Plaza in the coming months. EJI plans to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the late Congressman John Lewis with their own statues.

The Parks statue depicts her sitting down, in reference to her refusal to give up her seat to a white passenger aboard a Montgomery city bus in 1955. Her subsequent arrest led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-56.

The Rosa Parks statue was created by the acclaimed Atlanta-based sculptor Basil Watson who has recently created a statue of Dr. King for the city of Atlanta near Mercedes-Benz stadium.

Legacy Plaza is next to the Legacy Museum in downtown Montgomery. The plaza hosts a brick sculpture honoring civil rights marchers and a mural created by local artist Kevin King.

Before the unveiling, Stevenson honored three colleagues and fellow civil rights advocates. They were Doris Crenshaw, the director of the Southern Youth Leadership Conference, Georgette Norman, the former director of the Rosa Parks Museum in Montgomery and Dr. Tommie Tonea Stewart, Dean of the College of the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Alabama State University.

Bryan Stevenson, the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, stands in front of the Rosa Parks statue at Legacy Plaza in downtown Montgomery, Wednesday, February 14, 2024 – Photo from Action 8 News