Rosa Parks Statue, Capitol's First Of African-American Woman, To Be Dedicated

By Mark Memmott / NPR

Published February 12, 2013 at 9:40 AM PST

This story was published more than 12 years ago.

Rosa Parks in June 1999, when she was presented with a Congressional Gold Medal.

The late civil rights icon Rosa Parks, who broke racial barriers in 1955 when she would not move to the back of a segregated bus in Montgomery, Ala., will be posthumously part of another barrier-breaking moment on Feb. 27.

The office of House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, announced Tuesday that a statue of Parks will be dedicated that day in the National Statuary Hall of the U.S. Capitol.

According to Boehner's office, "this will be the first statue of an African-American woman to be placed in the Capitol as part of the National Statuary Hall Collection."

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President George W. Bush signed legislation in 2005 that directed Congress to add a statue of Parks to the Capitol's collection.

Parks, who would have turned 100 this month, died in 2005.