[Courtesy of Hiphopwired]
The U.S. Postage stamp featuring the image of Rosa Parks will be unveiled on what would have been her 100th birthday, Feb. 4.
Two national unveiling ceremonies will be held in Detroit and Dearborn, Mich.
Detroit’s Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, and the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn will host the events, expected to be attended by large crowds, and stamp collectors from all over the country. “Stamp collectors and other people travel to events like this because they want to be part of history,” noted, Don Neal, editor of a newsletter dedicated to stamps related to Black history.
Dubbed the National Day of Courage, the dedication ceremony will begin at 7:30 a.m. at the Henry Ford Museum, followed by the First-Day-of-Issue stamp event at 10:45 a.m., where attendees will be granted the first opportunity to purchase the stamps.
Harvard professor and scholar, Henry Louis Gates, Parks biographers Douglas Brinkley and Jeanne Theoharis, plus Newsweek editor, Eleanor Clift, are all expected to share words at the ceremonies.
Parks is known as one of the figures credited with leading one of the most pivotal moments in the Civil Rights Movement. In 1955, she refused to give her seat to a white man, and move to the “colored section,” while riding a bus in Montgomery, Ala. “Why don’t you stand up?” she responded when asked to move. “I don’t think I should have to stand up.”
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