Rosa Parks Achievements, Accomplishments, & Awards

In 1979, the NAACP awarded Rosa Parks the Spingarn Medal, their highest honor.

In 1980, the NAACP awarded Rosa Parks the Martin Luther King Jr. Award.

In 1983, Rosa Parks was inducted into the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame.

In 1990, Rosa Parks had the honor of being part of the welcoming party for Nelson Mandela, who had been recently imprisoned in South Africa.

In September of 1992, Rosa Parks was awarded the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience award for her years of community service and lifelong commitment to social change through non-violent means and civil rights.

Rosa Parks: My Story was written and published in 1992 by Rosa Parks herself. The book told the story of Rosa’s life leading up to the day she got on that bus and decided that she was not giving up her seat. Rosa later published another book called Quiet Strength, which described her faith and how it helped her on her journey through life.

In 1996, Rosa Parks was presented, by President Bill Clinton, with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. This is the highest honor that can be bestowed upon a civilian by the United States Government.

In 1998, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center presented Rosa Parks with the International Freedom Conductor Award.

In 1999, Rosa Parks was presented with the Congressional Gold Medal.

In 1999, Rosa Parks was awarded the Detroit-Windsor International Freedom Festival Freedom Award.

In 1999, Time Magazine named Rosa Parks as one of the 20 most powerful and influential figures of the century.

In 2000, the State of Alabama awarded Rosa Parks the Governor’s Medal of Honor for Extraordinary Courage. She also received the Alabama Academy Award the same year.

In December of 2000, The Rosa Parks Library and Museum was dedicated on the campus of Troy University in Montgomery, Alabama. The museum is famous for its statue of Rosa sitting on a bus bench.

During her lifetime, Rosa Parks was awarded more than two dozen honorary doctorates from universities worldwide. She was also inducted as an honorary member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority.

Rosa Parks, along with Elaine Eason Steel, started the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development in February of 1987. The Institute was developed in honor of Rosa’s husband, Raymond Parks who had died in 1977 of cancer. The Institute’s main function is to run the “Pathways to Freedom” bus tours, which take young people around the country to visit historical sites along the Underground Railroad and to important locations of events in Civil Rights history.

Three days after her death in October of 2005, The House of Representative and the United States Senate approved a resolution to allow Rosa Parks‘ body to be viewed in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda. Rosa was the first woman, and the second black person to ever have the honor of lying in state in the Nations capitol.

On the first anniversary of her death, President George W. Bush ordered a statue of Parks to be placed in the National Statuary Hall in Washington, D.C. When signing this resolution, President Bush stated,

“By placing her statue in the heart of the nation’s Capitol, we commemorate her work for a more perfect union, and we commit ourselves to continue to struggle for justice for every American.”