Illinois State creates mural to honor civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks

Posted on November 28, 2016

Mayuko Nakamura and John Davenport of Illinois State talk in front of the new Rosa Parks mural at Watterson Towers. (Photo courtesy ISU)

By Eric Stock

NORMAL – A new mural at Illinois State University celebrates civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks.

Her arrest on Dec. 1, 1955 for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger is considered a milestone in the civil rights movement.

“We want students to know that we support them and that this is a place of education,” ISU’s Director of Housing Services Stacey Mwilambwe said. “History if very important and so if we don’t learn from history, sometimes we are doomed to repeat the things we shouldn’t be repeating.

Mwilambwe said the new mural as part of the newly renovated Rosa Parks Conference Room at the Watterson Towers residence hall offers a historical narrative of Rosa Parks and other key figures in civil rights history.

“Some students learn from pictures, and others from reading so we wanted it to draw the person in to say here’s the beginning and I want to be looking for the whole timeline,’ so it’s the expanse of a long wall,” Mwilambwe said

The conference room was given technology upgrades. It was built in 1989.

Eric Stock can be reached at [email protected].

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