Rosa Parks Library and Museum - Montgomery - TravBuddy

The museum is located on the corner of Montgomery St. and Molton Ave., just across from Davis Theater for The Performing Arts. It is a three-story building with a sign you simply cannot miss. A statue of Rosa Parks stood in the middle of the lobby which led to the front desk.

The first diorama display opens into a rectangular room which has three large screens on the wall amongst pictures of figures of the Civil Rights movement and newspaper clippings from back in the day. In this room visitors can watch and hear about the information on the condition in the segregated South at the time. The images show the discriminatory public services such as drinking fountains for whites and black and the then-law of public buses in Montgomery. Then, there is an introduction of Rosa Parks, who was no ordinary woman. She was educated and hardworking. At the time she was the secretary of the NAACP and had tried to register to vote on several occasions, but failed.

After about two minutes of introductory show, a door is opened to the next display: an astonishing replica of a Montgomery bus. Its windows are replaced by extended screens showing actor-passengers portraying the passengers riding the infamous bus on Dec 1st, 1955. Just inches from the bus there is a street-sign pole switching over each time the narrator emphasizes the bus route. The whole display is a reenactment of the day on which Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger.

The story goes like this: the passengers got onto the bus. Then came Rosa Parks, who seated herself beside a black passenger on the third row. When the bus started to get full the black passengers had to give up their seats for the white passengers. We saw that some black passengers were already standing on the aisle because they had nowhere to sit. The bus driver rose from his seat and told Rosa Parks to give up her seat, but Parks replied no. Then the bus driver threatened to call the police and Parks said that he may do so. So he did. The scene changed as the rotary lights flashing on the background signaling that from a police car was approaching. Two police officers appeared on the scene and took Rosa Parks off the bus. Rosa Parks was taken to the police station and was detained in a jail cell.

The next display showed the aftermath of the incident. A door leading to a large room full of newspaper clippings, news cast from back in the day, the Montgomery bus boycott, and the unfolding events of Civil Rights movement in the South.

It was an incredible, educational reenactment of history. I highly recommend anybody who visits Montgomery to check out this museum.