12/12/19
'Utterly moved to be involved': Montgomery-born historian serves as model for Rosa Parks statue
Historians in the Newstags: historians, Rosa Parks, statues
Dr. Kimberly Brown Pellum has spent her career studying black women’s history. So, when the Montgomery native and Florida A&M University history professor was approached last summer to serve as a model for a monument to legendary civil rights activist Rosa Parks, she didn’t hesitate to say yes.
“There really aren’t words to capture how I feel,” Brown Pellum said by phone. “I am just completely and utterly moved to be involved.”
It all came about while Brown Pellum was working at the Rosa Parks Museum last summer with director Dr. Felicia Bell. Brown Pellum’s research explores how black women have been represented through images and beauty standards.
So, when Bell was asked by sculptor Clydetta Fulmer and the city to keep an eye out for potential models that could mirror Parks' petite 5’3 frame, Brown Pellum, who stands at 5’4, was a natural choice.
“Everything just fit. … All of it was like a puzzle that the stars saw fit to put together.”
comments powered by Disqus
News
- Chair of Florida Charter School Board on Firing of Principal: About Policy, Not David Statue
- Graduate Student Strikes Fight Back Against Decades of Austerity, Seek to Revive Opportunity
- When Right Wingers Struggle with Defining "Woke" it Shows they Oppose Pursuing Equality
- Strangelove on the Square: Secret USAF Films Showed Airmen What to Expect if Nuclear War Broke Out
- The Women of the Montgomery Bus Boycott
- New Books Force Consideration of Reconstruction's End from Black Perspective
- Excerpt: How Apartheid South Africa Tried to Create a Libertarian Utopia
- Historian's Book on 1970s NBA Shows Racial Politics around Basketball Have Always Been Ugly
- Kendi: "Anti-woke" Part of Backlash Against Antiracist Protest Movements
- Monica Muñoz Martinez Honored for Truth-Telling in Texas History