President Obama and congressional leaders unveil a statue to honor civil rights leader Rosa Parks in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol.

By Erin McClam, Staff Writer, NBC News Feb 27,2013

More than half a century after she refused to give up her seat on an Alabama city bus, Rosa Parks has an immovable place in the U.S. Capitol — the first black woman to be honored with a statue there.

President Barack Obama and congressional leaders from both parties said at an unveiling Wednesday that the depiction was fitting: Parks is shown seated, hands clasped in front of her, eyes fixed forward.

“Rosa Parks’ singular act of disobedience launched a movement,” Obama said. “The tired feet of those who walked the dusty roads of Montgomery helped a nation see that to which it had once been blind.”

On Dec. 1, 1955, Parks, then a 42-year-old seamstress, broke the law by refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a packed bus. Her arrest touched off a yearlong boycott of the bus system, a turning point in the civil rights movement. In 1956, the Supreme Court banned segregation on public transportation...

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