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| Rosa Parks statue unveiling lets Obama and Boehner draw a veil over rivalry | Rosa Parks statue unveiling lets Obama and Boehner draw a veil over rivalry |
| (30 days later) | |
| Almost 58 years after her famous protest on an Alabama bus, the "first lady of civil rights" has been given a permanent place in Congress. | Almost 58 years after her famous protest on an Alabama bus, the "first lady of civil rights" has been given a permanent place in Congress. |
| Though mired in tension over the looming budget sequester, president Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner put politics aside on Wednesday to unveil a 9ft bronze statue of Rosa Parks in the Capitol's Statuary Hall. Boehner, who gave a welcome address at the unveiling ceremony said: "Every now and then, we've got to step back and say to ourselves: 'What a country.' This is one of those moments." | Though mired in tension over the looming budget sequester, president Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner put politics aside on Wednesday to unveil a 9ft bronze statue of Rosa Parks in the Capitol's Statuary Hall. Boehner, who gave a welcome address at the unveiling ceremony said: "Every now and then, we've got to step back and say to ourselves: 'What a country.' This is one of those moments." |
| In 1955 Parks, who is often called the "mother of the civil rights movement", refused to obey a bus driver in Montgomery, Alabama when he asked her to give up her seat for a white passenger. Her subsequent arrest for disobeying state law ignited a 381-day boycott of the bus system. | In 1955 Parks, who is often called the "mother of the civil rights movement", refused to obey a bus driver in Montgomery, Alabama when he asked her to give up her seat for a white passenger. Her subsequent arrest for disobeying state law ignited a 381-day boycott of the bus system. |
| "This morning we celebrate a seamstress slight in stature but mighty in courage", said Obama, to an audience including more than 50 of Parks' relatives and members of Congress. "In a single moment, with the simplest of gestures, she helped change America and the world." | "This morning we celebrate a seamstress slight in stature but mighty in courage", said Obama, to an audience including more than 50 of Parks' relatives and members of Congress. "In a single moment, with the simplest of gestures, she helped change America and the world." |
| Though a bust of another African-American woman, the 19th-century abolitionist Sojourner Truth, sits in the Capitol Visitor Center, Parks is the first African-American woman to have a place in Statuary Hall itself. The highest-ranking African-American member of Congress, James Clyburn, called Parks "the first lady of civil rights, the mother of the movement, the saint of an endless struggle". | Though a bust of another African-American woman, the 19th-century abolitionist Sojourner Truth, sits in the Capitol Visitor Center, Parks is the first African-American woman to have a place in Statuary Hall itself. The highest-ranking African-American member of Congress, James Clyburn, called Parks "the first lady of civil rights, the mother of the movement, the saint of an endless struggle". |
| The new statue depicts a dignified-looking Parks, sitting down with her arms folded across her lap. Parks, who died in 2005, became the first woman and the third non-US government official to lie in honor at the Capitol Rotunda (Jacob Chestnut and John Gibson, police officers killed at the Capitol in 1998, were the first). She was given the presidential medal of freedom in 1996 and the congressional medal in 1999. | The new statue depicts a dignified-looking Parks, sitting down with her arms folded across her lap. Parks, who died in 2005, became the first woman and the third non-US government official to lie in honor at the Capitol Rotunda (Jacob Chestnut and John Gibson, police officers killed at the Capitol in 1998, were the first). She was given the presidential medal of freedom in 1996 and the congressional medal in 1999. |
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