Rosa Parks Mural

The walls in Tallahassee have never been so full of color. A new mural by artist Kollet Hardeman was recently revealed at The Florida People's Advocacy Center in Frenchtown. Often referred to as the "Mother of the Civil Rights era," Rosa Parks is most well-known for her 1955 refusal to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger. This refusal sparked the Montgomery bus boycott, a pivotal event of the Civil Rights Movement. Although Parks' refusal to give up her bus seat led her to become a popular symbol of the civil rights movement, her action that day on the bus was a natural outgrowth of her life long dedication to activism and civil rights. In fact, Parks was a longtime member of Montgomery National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and when she inspired the bus boycott, Parks had been the secretary of that organization for twelve years. Parks founded the Montgomery NAACP Youth Council and later served as secretary of the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP, where she traveled throughout the state interviewing victims of discrimination and witnesses to lynching's.