“Rosa Parks” 1983 (painted limewood) by Marshall D. Rumbaugh | Photo by Arts Observer
WASHINGTON, DC—Among the painted portraits of civil rights and women’s rights leaders in the Struggle for Justice exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, there is a plexiglass display case housing a unique sculpture of Rosa Parks. The civil rights legend was arrested on Dec. 1, 1955 in Montgomery, Ala., for refusing give her seat on a public bus to a white man. The sculpture by Marshall D. Rumbaugh depicts Parks being escorted in handcuffs by two white men—one in a police uniform, the other in a business suit. The permanent exhibit opened in February 2010.