The Museum of UnCut Funk has added the Rosa Parks US Medal of Honor to our coin and medals collection.
Rosa Parks, the “mother of the civil rights movement” was one of the most important citizens of the 20th century. Mrs. Parks was a seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama when, in December of 1955, she refused to give up her seat on a city bus to a white passenger. The bus driver had her arrested. She was tried and convicted of violating a local ordinance.
Her act sparked a citywide boycott of the bus system by Blacks that lasted more than a year. The boycott raised an unknown clergyman named Martin Luther King, Jr., to national prominence and resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation on city buses. Over the next four decades, she helped make her fellow Americans aware of the history of the civil rights struggle. This pioneer in the struggle for racial equality was the recipient of innumerable honors, including the Martin Luther King Jr. Nonviolent Peace Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Her example remains an inspiration to freedom-loving people everywhere.
The obverse of the medal features her portrait with the following inscriptions centered along the top “ROSA PARKS” and centered along the bottom and sides “MOTHER OF THE MODERN DAY CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT.” The reverse features the motto “QUIET STRENGTH” centered along the top above the earth’s globe, which is beneath the scales of justice, framed by a swag of oak leaves on the left and right sides. The quotes, “PRIDE, DIGNITY, COURAGE,” and “BY ACT OF CONGRESS 1999″ are inscribed on the center bottom of the reverse.
