Photo via Washington National CathedralThe National Cathedral’s newest sculpture goes on formal display Thursday, with the church set to unveil a stone carving honoring Rosa Parks’ 1955 bus ride in a sculpture gallery dedicated human-rights activists.
The Parks statue will take its place on the cathedral’s Human Rights Porch alongside sculptures depicting other figures including Eleanor Roosevelt, Archbishop Óscar Romero and Bishop John T. Walker. The bust of Parks, completed last year, is the handiwork of the cathedral’s resident stonemason, Sean Callahan.
At the same time he was working on the Parks statue, Callahan also carved a statue honoring Mother Teresa. That sculpture will be dedicated at a later date, a cathedral spokesperson told DCist.
On Thursday, the cathedral will formally debut the Parks statue with an evening prayer service. Parks’ niece Rhea McCauley will be among those in attendance at the service, the Associated Press reported.
Rosa Parks became a figure of the civil-rights movement in Montgomery, Ala. in 1955 after refusing to give up her bus seat to a white passenger. Parks, who died in 2005, is also remembered in stone at the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall, where a sculpture of her was installed after her death.
