A statue of U.S. civil rights leader Rosa Parks has been unveiled in Montgomery, capital of the southern state of Alabama.
The unveiling Sunday marks the 64th anniversary of the day Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man.
“Today, on the second official Rosa Parks Day, we honor a seamstress and a servant, one whose courage ran counter to her physical stature,” said Mayor Steven Reed, the city’s first African American mayor. “She was a consummate contributor to equality and did so with a quiet humility that is an example for all of us.”
On December 1, 1955, Parks was on her way home when she was asked to vacate her seat for a white man. She refused.
Her subsequent arrest led to the 381-day boycott of the Montgomery bus system, organized by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., then pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.
The statue is located at Montgomery Plaza, about 9 meters from the spot where Parks is believed to have boarded the bus.
Parks’ small act of defiance made her a major symbol of the civil rights movement.
She died in 2005 at age 92.