D.C. exhibit celebrates 'Mother of Civil Rights'

WASHINGTON — An exhibit celebrating Rosa Parks' defiance of racial injustice has some good company at the National Archives, sharing the scene with original copies of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

The exhibit, "Mother of Civil Rights," marks the 50th anniversary of the day Parks defied Jim Crow law in Montgomery, Ala., by refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man on Dec. 1, 1955.

Parks was a 42-year-old tailor's assistant at a department store. Her action triggered a 381-day boycott of the Montgomery bus system led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

The next year the Supreme Court ruled that segregated seats on city buses were unconstitutional, giving momentum to the battle against laws that separated the races in public accommodations and businesses throughout the South.

The exhibit is a modest show, a single glass case under a dim light, next to the rotunda that houses the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

It consists of a photo of Parks and three documents: a diagram of the seating in the Cleveland Avenue bus she rode that day, her fingerprint sheet and the arrest report.

"The bus operator said he had a colored female sitting in the white section of the bus, and would not move back," the report said.

At the time, black passengers on Montgomery buses had to enter the front of the bus, pay their fares, get out and walk to the rear door near the seats for blacks. Sometimes the bus would drive off before they made it.

Officers J.D. Day and D.W. Nixon signed the arrest report. One of them is said to have asked Parks why she did not stand up when ordered to give up her seat. "I don't think I should have to. Why do you push us around so?" she said.

The officer replied: "I don't know, but the law is the law, and you are under arrest."

Parks died Oct. 25 at the age of 92. The exhibit is on display through Dec. 15.

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