Rosa Parks Museum to lead bus tour of downtown historic sites | Arts & Culture

Troy University's Rosa Parks Museum will lead a group of local high school students and civic leaders on a tour of Montgomery’s downtown historic sites as part of a joint project to develop a photography exhibit for the London Olympic games.

About 20 students from local public schools will join community and business leaders for a tour through many of Montgomery’s historic downtown locations on Thursday, May 17, including the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, the Centennial Hill neighborhood and Rosa Parks’ Cleveland Court apartment.

The journey will be documented by photographer Bridget Koehler as part of a project to create a new photography exhibition to be displayed in London during the summer Olympic games.

The Rosa Parks Museum has partnered with UK-based nonprofit Heartstone to create the photo exhibit, which will include images not only of the Montgomery bus journey but also of a similar tour made in April in London in which students and community leaders toured historic sties significant to London’s civil rights history.

Museum Director Georgette Norman, who traveled to England to take part in the London tour and will lead the Montgomery tour, said the concept behind the dual bus journeys is to explore how the changes brought about by the Montgomery bus boycott spread globally.

“What happened in 1955 in Montgomery spread around the world, and it all started on board a bus,” Norman said.

Participants in the Montgomery tour will gather outside the Rosa Parks Museum at 9 a.m. before boarding a replica 1955 Montgomery City Bus for the daylong tour. The event will also include stops at the Police Academy and City Hall during which city leaders will reflect on how the civil rights movement changed Montgomery.

Members of the public are invited to join the bus tour at its various stops. For more information about the tour, including a complete schedule, contact Norman at 334-241-8702 or gmnorman@troy.edu.

Source:  Troy University Office of University Relations