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Rosa Parks Statue To Be Dedicated In Capitol Wednesday

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The statue of Parks will join other major historical figures in the National Statuary Hall.
Adam Fagen: http://www.flickr.com/photos/afagen/3150801736/
The statue of Parks will join other major historical figures in the National Statuary Hall.

A statue of civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks will be dedicated in the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday. President Barack Obama says it promises to be a "powerful moment."

Parks' refusal in December of 1955 to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger led to a citywide bus boycott in Montgomery, Ala., and encouraged nationwide efforts to end segregation.

Parks died in October 2005.

Obama said Thursday in a radio interview with Al Sharpton that the statue will put a seamstress who helped bring about a "more just America'' in her rightful place among some of the titans of U.S. government.

Officials say the statue will be the first full-length one of an African-American woman in National Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol. The sculpture is cast in bronze, and combined with its black granite pedestal, is nearly nine feet tall.

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