Catching a Ride Into Civil Rights History

MONTGOMERY, Ala. —  Exactly 45 years after Rosa Parks defied a city bus driver’s order to give up her seat to a white passenger, a museum in her honor opened at the corner where she made history.

The arrest of Parks, then a seamstress, prompted a 381-day boycott of Montgomery buses that helped launch the modern civil rights movement and propelled the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to national prominence.

The $10-million Rosa Parks Library and Museum, which debuted Dec. 1, provides a glimpse of life under segregation, partly by re-creating the conversation between Parks and the bus driver. It also includes interactive exhibits and a bus that was used in Montgomery at the time of Parks’ arrest.

The building’s first floor contains the museum; the second and third floors make up the library of Troy State University Montgomery. School officials had planned a parking lot for the corner until they realized that many people were making pilgrimages there. Parks, now 87, and other civil rights luminaries attended the building’s dedication.

The museum is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays to Fridays and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturdays; it is closed Sundays. Adult admission is $5. Telephone (334) 241-8661, Internet https://www.tsum.edu/museum.