I noticed what looked like a new a statue of Rosa Parks standing on a corner in downtown Grand Rapids when we visited ArtPrize this past year.
Sure enough, the city erected and dedicated the statue near the end of the 2010 ArtPrize competition.
Meanwhile, Tim noticed that the sculptor of the Rosa Parks tribute was Ed Dwight, the same sculptor who did the International Underground Railroad Memorial sculpture in Detroit's Hart Plaza.
Intrigued, I discovered that Dwight had quite the history himself. He was the first African American astronaut trainee in the United States during the 1960s, although he never got the opportunity to go up into space, before becoming the renowned creator of more than 100 public art pieces celebrating the history of African Americans across the country.
Dwight himself traveled to Grand Rapids to speak at the statue's September 30, 2010, dedication attended by hundreds of people and capping a week-long celebration of Rosa Parks' life.
The bronze statue atop a black marble base sits at the corner of Pearl and Monroe Center NW near the edge of a triangular plot of land just west of the city's striking art museum.
The 3.5-acre plot of land, known as Rosa Parks Circle, is a park designed in 2001 by artist Maya Lin, who also designed the Viet Nam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Lin envisioned the park as a reminder of the region's abundant water resources, centering the design with a public ice rink.
The city considered several names for the park harkening back to the location's early history, but some on the naming committee wanted to dedicate the park to someone known for their courage and dedication to the rights of all.
Rosa Parks had no connection to the city and hadn't ever visited Grand Rapids, but in the end, the committee voted 4-3 to name the park for Parks.
This particular plot of land was also notable for being the site of a rally for Robert Kennedy during his abbreviated presidential run in 1968, which ended with his assassination.
In 2008, Grand Rapids formed a Rosa Parks Sculpture Committee charged with commissioning a tribute to Mrs. Parks and raising $350,000 to pay for the project.
The committee picked Ed Dwight to create the memorial, raised $370,000 for the sculpture and secured artist Maya Lin's approval for placing it at the park.
Dwight decided to depict Mrs. Parks standing in front of a bus seat, rather than showing her sitting on the seat that she refused to yield to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955. Dwight told critics of that choice that he felt a standing statue depicted the heroine in a more powerful posture, citing a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King that said a man couldn't ride on your back unless it was bent.
Be sure to check out my stories Ed Dwight and the International Underground Railroad Memorial in Detroit and See the bus Rosa Parks rode into history at The Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan.
Want to learn more? Check out Rosa Parks: A Life by Douglas Brinkley, Rosa Parks: My Story by Rosa Parks and Jim Haskins and Soaring on the Wings of a Dream: The Untold Story of America's First Black Astronaut Candidate by Ed Dwight.
© Dominique King 2012 All rights reserved
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