WASHINGTON -- A statue created in part by a Kensington resident of civil rights icon Rosa Parks was dedicated at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, according to a news release from Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez.
Rob Firmin, a sculptor and architect, helped create the first full-sized statue authorized and funded by Congress since 1873 and the first statue of an African-American woman in the U.S. Capitol, according to the National Endowment of the Arts. Parks famously refused to move to the back of the bus in Montgomery, Ala., on Dec. 1, 1955, helping to spark the civil rights movement.
"I am so proud that Dr. Rob Firmin, a constituent and an accomplished sculptor from Kensington, was an integral part of today's historic occasion," Miller said in the release. "He and his studio partner, Eugene Daub, were selected from hundreds of submissions by the Joint committee on the Library of the United States Congress and have completed a truly stunning likeness of a true civil rights and American icon."