Rosa Louise McCauley Parks was an American activist in the civil rights movement best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott. The United States Congress has called her "the first lady of civil rights" and "the mother of the freedom movement".
Claudette Colvin is a pioneer of the 1950s civil rights movement and retired nurse aide. On March 2, 1955, she was arrested at the age of 15 in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her seat to a white woman on a crowded, segregated bus. This occurred nine months before the more widely known incident in which Rosa Parks, secretary of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), helped spark the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott.
Mary Louise Smith is an African-American civil rights activist. She is notable for having been arrested in October 1955 at the age of 18 in Montgomery, Alabama for refusing to give up her seat on the segregated bus system. She is one of several women who were arrested for this offense prior to Rosa Parks that year. Parks was the figure around whom the Montgomery bus boycott was organized, starting December 5, 1955.
The National Statuary Hall is a chamber in the United States Capitol devoted to sculptures of prominent Americans. The hall, also known as the Old Hall of the House, is a large, two-story, semicircular room with a second story gallery along the curved perimeter. It is located immediately south of the Rotunda. The meeting place of the U.S. House of Representatives for nearly 50 years (1807–1857), after a few years of disuse in 1864 it was repurposed as a statuary hall; this is when the National Statuary Hall Collection was established. By 1933 the collection had outgrown this single room, and a number of statues are placed elsewhere within the Capitol.
The National Statuary Hall Collection in the United States Capitol is composed of statues donated by individual states to honor persons notable in their history. Limited to two statues per state, the collection was originally set up in the old Hall of the House of Representatives, which was then renamed National Statuary Hall. The expanding collection has since been spread throughout the Capitol and its Visitor's Center.
The United States Capitol rotunda is the central rotunda of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., built 1818–1824. It is located below the Capitol dome, built 1857–1866; the later construction also extended the height of the rotunda walls. It is the tallest part of the Capitol and has been described as its "symbolic and physical heart".
Philip Reed also Philip Reid was an African American master craftsman who worked at the foundries of self-taught sculptor Clark Mills, where historical monuments such as the 1853 equestrian statue of Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Square, near the White House in Washington, D.C., the 1860 equestrian statue of George Washington in Washington Circle, and the 1863 Statue of Freedom in Washington D.C., were created. He was born in c. 1820 into slavery in South Carolina's historic city of Charleston and was emancipated on April 16, 1862, under the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act After his emancipation, he assisted Mills in installing the Statue of Freedom atop the United States Capitol, which was completed on December 2, 1863. Reid began working as an enslaved apprentice to Mills in 1842, as a young man in his twenties, who was already recognized for his talents in the foundry industry. In the 1860s, after having worked at the foundry for almost two decades, Reid's skills in working with bronze casting were recognized. In 1928, Tennessee Representative, Finis J. Garrett presented a paper honoring Reid for his "faithful service and genius", and describing the key role he had played in casting the statue of Freedom, that is now part of the Congressional Record. A memorial plaque honoring Philip Reed was unveiled on April 16, 2014—the 152nd anniversary of Emancipation in Washington, D.C.—in the National Harmony Memorial Park in Hyattsville, Maryland. It reads, "Philip Reed The slave who built the Statue of Freedom atop the U.S. Capitol died a free man on February 6, 1892 and is buried here..." In 2013, he was described by the Architect of the Capitol as the "single best known enslaved person associated with the Capitol’s construction history".
The United States Capitol crypt is the large circular room filled with forty neoclassical Doric columns directly beneath the United States Capitol rotunda. It was built originally to support the rotunda as well as offer an entrance to Washington's Tomb. It currently serves as a museum and a repository for thirteen statues of the National Statuary Hall Collection.
Eugene Daub is an American contemporary figure sculptor, best known for his portraits and figurative monument sculpture created in the classic heroic style. His sculptures reside in three of the nation's state capitals and in the National Statuary Hall in the United States Capitol. His work appears in public monuments and permanent collections in the United States and Europe.
Aurelia Shines Browder Coleman was an African-American civil rights activist in Montgomery, Alabama. In April 1955, almost eight months before the arrest of Rosa Parks and a month after the arrest of Claudette Colvin, she was arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white rider.
Rosa Parks (1913–2005) was an American civil rights activist.
A bust of Martin Luther King Jr. by the American artist John Woodrow Wilson is located at the United States Capitol rotunda in Washington, D.C..
The history of the 1954 to 1968 American civil rights movement has been depicted and documented in film, song, theater, television, and the visual arts. These presentations add to and maintain cultural awareness and understanding of the goals, tactics, and accomplishments of the people who organized and participated in this nonviolent movement.
Rosa Parks is an outdoor 2009 bronze sculpture depicting the African-American Civil Rights activist of the same name by Pete Helzer, installed outside the bus station in Eugene, Oregon, in the United States.
Robert E. Lee is a bronze sculpture commemorating the general of the same name by Edward Virginius Valentine, formerly installed in the crypt of the United States Capitol as part of the National Statuary Hall Collection. The statue was gifted by the commonwealth of Virginia in 1909. On December 21, 2020, the sculpture was removed from the grounds of the United States Capitol and relocated to the Virginia Museum of History & Culture.
Edmund Kirby Smith is a bronze sculpture commemorating the United States Army officer of the same name by C. Adrian Pillars, installed in the United States Capitol Visitor Center as part of the National Statuary Hall Collection. The statue was gifted by the state of Florida in 1922.
William Jennings Bryan is a bronze sculpture depicting the American politician of the same name by Rudulph Evans, which was installed in the United States Capitol's National Statuary Hall, in Washington, D.C., as part of the National Statuary Hall Collection. The statue was gifted by the U.S. state of Nebraska in 1937.
There are several works of art in the United States Capitol honoring former leaders of the Confederate States of America and generals in the Confederate States Army, including eight statues in the National Statuary Hall Collection, busts and portraits.
Continuing the Conversation is a public sculpture honoring Rosa Parks in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Located on the main campus of the Georgia Institute of Technology, the artwork was created by Martin Dawe and unveiled in 2018.
