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On Saturday, Feb. 1, Troy University’s Rosa Parks Museum will host a celebration of the civil rights figure’s life and legacy in honor of what would have been her 112th birthday. The event will include free admission to the museum and special programs honoring Parks’ life and legacy.
Visitors will be able to attend a presentation of “The Life and Legacy of Rosa Parks” featuring a reenactment of the civil rights icon by Ann Clemons, a former employee of the Montgomery Convention and Visitors Bureau. Guests can also visit an authentic 1950s-era Montgomery City Bus which will be on-site.
Additonally, Parks’ niece Sheila McCauley Keys will be featured in a program entitled “The Gathering” in the museum’s auditorium. Keys has been an active voice in preserving her aunt’s legacy, having written “Our Auntie Rosa: The Family of Rosa Parks Remembers Her Life and Lessons” in 2015 with award-winning journalist and author Eddie B. Allen, Jr.
“We hope all will join us for this special celebration as we honor the life and legacy Mrs. Parks,” said Donna Beisel, the museum’s Director of Operations. “Mrs. Parks dedicated her life to activism, and as we celebrate what would have been her 112th birthday, we want to remember all of her contributions to fight for justice and civil rights.”
The event will be held in the wake of an executive order issued by President Donald Trump soon after his return to office which attacks diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in the federal government. Among the impacts of Trump’s order, which mirrored Alabama’s own Senate Bill 129, was the removal of a video highlighting the Tuskegee Airmen from Air Force training seminars before bipartisan backlash resulted in the video being reinstated into the curriculum.
Last week, Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin spoke out to criticize Trump’s executive order and attacks on DEI writ-large.
“Inclusion is not a bad thing. There is no such thing as going too far as it relates to being inclusive,” Randall said in an appearance on CNN This Morning. “There’s no such thing as going too far as it relates to equity. This is America. Equity is the right thing to do. There’s no such thing as diversity being bad. America is a very diverse place. I think Diversity, Equity and Inclusion has been weaponized for some to use to say it’s taken away from others.”
As DEI programs face scrutiny at both a state and national level, events highlighting the accurate history of the Civil Rights Movement and the legacies of Black historical icons like Rosa Parks could increasingly become the subject of political controversy.
The Rosa Parks Museum is located at Troy University’s Montgomery Campus on the spot of Mrs. Parks’ historic 1955 arrest. The museum opened on Dec. 1, 2000, “with the mission of interpreting the story and legacy of Mrs. Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott for future generations.”
