Detroit — Grand Rapids has a statue honoring Rosa Parks. So do Dallas and Eugene, Ore.
But efforts to build a monument for the civil rights icon in the nation's capital are taking longer than most expected, frustrating supporters as the 55th anniversary nears of her arrest for refusing to give up her seat on a segregated Montgomery, Ala., bus on Dec. 1, 1955.
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Then-President George W. Bush signed a bill on Dec. 1, 2005, to make the longtime Detroit resident the first African-American woman honored in the U.S. Capitol's National Statuary Hall. The project stalled because money initially wasn't allocated for it, and it's now at least a year away from completion.
"It's going to be a while," said Willis Edwards, a national board member for the NAACP. "We're pushing hard to get this done."
Parks moved to Detroit two years after she helped launch the modern civil rights movement and died in her downtown apartment in 2005 at age 92.
After her death, there was flurry of promises to immortalize her, some more successful than others.
Grand Rapids officials unveiled a statue of Parks in their downtown in September.
But in Detroit, a bus depot that bears her name dishonors Parks, some say.
Opened a year ago, the $22.5 million Rosa Parks Transit Center downtown is overrun with homeless people, flooded toilets and filthy floors.
City Council President Pro Tem Gary Brown said it's a "despicable" way to remember Parks and suggested her name should be removed if officials can't keep it clean.
Parks' name also is on a federal immigration center on East Jefferson, but Detroit has no plans for a statue of her. Having one would be appropriate, said Elaine Steele, her close friend and co-founder of the Rosa & Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development.
"Detroit can step it up," said Gregory Reed, Parks' lawyer. "We have done some significant things here, but we have fallen down when other places across the country carried on."
In Washington, D.C., a spokesman for the Architect of the Capitol — which oversees the hall that includes statues of famed Americans from Samuel Adams to Brigham Young — said Parks' statue is being fabricated and that it could take about a year for it to be finished and approved.
Despite the delays, the project is "on track," said Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill., a sponsor. Delays were caused because Congress' Joint Committee on the Library was designated to obtain the statue, but it was later found the committee didn't have the technical ability or resources to enter contracts to pay for the monument.
"I am looking forward to a great moment for the country when a statue of Rosa Parks is placed in the Capitol building alongside other giants of American history," Jackson said in a statement this week.
Posted By: Siebra Muhammad
Friday, November 26th 2010 at 6:05PM
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