President Barack Obama, congressional leaders and more than 50 of Parks’ relatives took part Wednesday in the unveiling of a 9-foot bronze statue of Parks in Statuary Hall.
“This morning, we celebrate a seamstress slight in stature but mighty in courage,” the president said. “In a single moment, with the simplest of gestures, she helped change America and change the world.”
Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C. and the highest-ranking black member of Congress, called Parks “the first lady of civil rights, the mother of the movement, the saint of an endless struggle.”
