October 29, 2025
The statue will also become the first monument of a woman on the Alabama State Capitol lawn.
The legacy of Rosa Parks will be forever remembered with a statue in the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery.
NBC News reported that the monument holds another historic feat beyond its remembrance of the civil rights icon. It will also become the first monument of a black woman on the State Capitol lawn.
The statue’s unveiling pays homage to the Black woman known for refusing to give up her seat on a segregated bus in 1955. Her bravery sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycotts that spearheaded desegregation efforts across the U.S.
State Rep. Laura Hall initially sponsored the 2019 legislation that paved the way for the monument’s creation. State lawmakers approved the project, with the Alabama Women’s Tribute Statue Commission overseeing the monument’s development.
Born in Tuskegee, Alabama, Parks moved to Montgomery and joined its city chapter of the NAACP in 1943. Prior to her arrest, she advocated for voting rights and protested sexual and racial violence, in her position.
Parks’ historic refusal led to her appointment as the symbol for the boycott protesting segregation. Her subsequent guilty conviction for violating state law led to the boycott’s official continuation past its initial one-day warning.
However, she was not the first Black person to do so in protest of Jim Crow laws, including 15-year-old Claudette Colvin, who did so nine months before. Despite this, Parks remains a revered figure in Black history for her lifetime work for civil rights.
The sustained effort to resist racist transportation laws lasted 381 days, officially ending following the 1956 Browder v. Gayle case. Its plaintiffs included Colvin and Aurelia Browder, Mary Louise Smith, and Susie McDonald, all whom were arrested prior to Parks for the same action. The landmark federal case ruled segregation on public transportation as unconstitutional.
Now, Parks’ influence in changing the course of history will become part of the State Capitol Oct. 31. It will face the same street where she first boarded the bus that solidified her legacy.
Parks will join fellow Alabamian icon, Helen Keller, who will receive her own statue on the Capitol grounds. Of the monument’s figures, Rep. Hall emphasized how both women represent the best of Alabama as they remain symbols of equality.
“Helen Keller and Rosa Parks just seemed to be the image that — whether you were Black or white, Democrat or Republican — you could identify with and realize the impact that they had on history,” Hall said.
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