Civil rights icon Rosa Parks would have been 100 years old on Feb. 4. To celebrate the life of the woman who spurred a movement to end legally sanctioned racial discrimination when she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Ala., bus, the U.S. Postal Service will unveil a stamp honoring her legacy at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit and the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich.
The events are expected to draw collectors and black-history enthusiasts alike. From Essence:
The first Rosa Parks Forever stamps will be sold at the Wright museum, with a dedication ceremony starting at 7:30.a.m. The Henry Ford Museum, where the Rosa Parks bus is on permanent display, will host the First-Day-of-Issue stamp event at 10:45 a.m., as part of a daylong celebration dubbed the National Day of Courage …
Speakers at the Henry Ford event will include activist and former NAACP Chairman Julian Bond and U.S. Rep. John Conyers, a Democrat from Detroit for whom Parks worked as a secretary and receptionist from 1965-88.
"Stamp collectors and other people travel to events like this because they want to be part of history," said Don Neal, editor of "Reflections," a newsletter published by the Ebony Society of Philatelic Events and Reflections, a group focused on collecting stamps depicting people and events relating to the experiences of black people worldwide.
As with other first-day stamp events, people attending the Rosa Parks debuts will get to purchase the first stamps issued, in this case, postmarked Feb. 4 and canceled with Detroit or Dearborn postmarks.
Read more at Essence and USA Today.