New monument turns Rosa Parks’s booking number into warning on US erasure
Summary
A new monument called Montgomery Square in Alabama honors Rosa Parks and the civil rights movement by displaying her 1956 booking number as a symbol of resistance. The site is part of four Legacy Sites created by the Equal Justice Initiative to remember racial injustice and encourage people to reflect on ongoing struggles for racial equality.Key Facts
- Montgomery Square features bronze hands holding a placard with Rosa Parks’s booking number, 7053, from her 1956 arrest.
- The square is located where voting rights marchers passed in 1965 in Montgomery, Alabama.
- The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), led by Bryan Stevenson, created Montgomery Square as the newest of four Legacy Sites in the city.
- EJI’s sites memorialize the history of racial terror and injustice, including slavery, lynching, and mass incarceration.
- The opening of Montgomery Square came shortly before the Supreme Court weakened part of the Voting Rights Act, leading to challenges to Black political representation.
- An inscription on the square reads, “We have come too far to turn around now,” emphasizing ongoing efforts for racial justice.
- The Legacy Sites attract about half a million visitors each year.
- Personal stories, like that of Josephine Bolling McCall whose father was lynched, connect families to these memorials and the history they represent.
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