Mickey Welsh / Advertiser
(Alas: Unfortunately the actual bus in which Rosa Parks was arrested was located and restored by a Detroit group. It is now a major feature of a museum there.)
Museums often showcase artifacts that represent
significant technological advances as symbols of our scientific
progress. Cultural innovation, however, is more difficult to convey. In
our quest to spotlight social change, curators at The Henry Ford search
for objects that embody some of America’s most compelling cultural
movements.
On December 1, 1955, African-American seamstress Rosa Parks was arrested
for failing to give up her seat on a Montgomery city bus to a white
man, breaking existing segregation laws. Many believe this act sparked
the Civil Rights movement. When the opportunity arose, our staff
recognized that the Rosa Parks bus would be an extraordinary addition to
the museum—though it would be a long journey to acquire and restore it.
Questioning the Bus’s Authenticity
The bus identification number was not recorded in any official documents when Rosa Parks was arrested, so years later, many museums and organizations were searching for the bus, but no one was quite sure which bus it was. When bus #2857 was retired in the early 1970s, Roy H. Summerford of Montgomery bought it. At the time, company employees told him that it was the Rosa Parks bus. Summerford and his descendants kept the bus in a field and used it to store lumber and tools. When Summerford passed away, the bus became the property of his daughter and son-in-law, Vivian and Donnie Williams. Although the Williamses knew that this had been identified as the Rosa Parks bus, they had no documents to prove it.
Robert Lifson, President of Mastronet, an Internet auction house, decided he wanted to auction off the bus for Mr. and Mrs. Williams. He began a search for documents authenticating the bus—and he found one.
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