Latest / In Focus with Carolyn Hutcheson / Rosa Parks Museum - TPR's In Focus - March 18, 2026

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Rosa Parks Museum - TPR's In Focus - March 18, 2026 · In Focus with Carolyn Hutcheson

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  Support comes from the Wiregrass Archives at Troy University's Dothan Campus,
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  identifying and preserving historical documents and photographs for research related to the
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  Wiregrass region. More information at troy.edu slash wiregrass archives.
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  From Troy Public Radio, this is In Focus, and I'm Carolyn Hutcheson. Rosa Parks is often
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  remembered during Women's History Month. Today, Donna Beisel, Director of Operations at the
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  Troy University Rosa Parks Museum, shares how the museum is working with the Library of Congress
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  to bring Mrs. Parks' personal collection of memorabilia back to Alabama to be housed
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  at the museum in Montgomery that honors her memory.
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  Donna, welcome back to Troy Public Radio.
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  Well, thank you for having me.
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  What's the big news?
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  Yes, so we have an opportunity to bring Mrs. Parks' collection home to Montgomery,
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  specifically. It is currently housed in storage at the Library of Congress,
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  behind the scenes, where nobody is able to really experience these items. And so we have
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  the opportunity to raise the funds to bring that collection here.
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  Do you have any of the collection already here?
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  We do. We have a few items. Her fingerprint record is housed at the
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  Alabama Department of Archives and History. But from the Library of Congress collection,
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  we have a campaign button that was Mrs. Parks when she was campaigning for Shirley Chisholm
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  for president. We have a handmade doll that she made. We have an AME church discipline book
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  when she served as a deaconess in Michigan at St. Matthew's AME Church. And so those are the
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  ones that we have right now. But we have copies of items that detail her own personal experiences
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  with not only the Montgomery bus boycott, but the activist work she was doing for about two decades
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  before her arrest. And then for nearly five decades after, once she and her husband and
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  mother moved to Detroit, she became very active in the politics up there. And so it tells a more
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  complete picture of her and who she was as a person and who she was as an activist. It has
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  those items, but it also has personal correspondence with Dr. King, with her husband,
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  with her mother. So it humanizes her as well, instead of this mythical icon that we know her
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  to be. Will the Rosa Parks Museum get the whole collection? The overwhelming majority will be.
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  There are some items that are currently housed at the Smithsonian National African American Museum
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  that will stay there. There are a few items that the Library of Congress will keep in their
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  collection. But most of the items, should we raise the money for the exhibit itself,
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  would be transferred to us. The largest expense of that is being able to store and preserve those
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  items long term. Does this involve a grant? It does. We just submitted an application for the
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  Institute for Museum and Library Services African American History and Culture Museums Grant,
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  and that will help us develop the first two phases for developing the specifics that would
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  go into the permanent exhibit. And then we will have to still rely on other grant funding
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  or donations to create that permanent exhibit space. Can people contribute to this effort
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  to bring Rosa Parks' personal collection home to Alabama? Absolutely. People can go on our
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  website and donate that way. They can reach out to the museum and contact me directly,
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  and we can work that out. Or we can send materials out to people if they then want to
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  share that within their circles. That is also an option. You mentioned earlier a doll that
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  Rosa Parks had made. Can you describe that doll? It's kind of a stuffed animal, almost teddy bear
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  shape. But it's this pink floral material that is sewn together and stuffed as a child's toy that
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  she made when they lived here in Montgomery. How long did she live in Montgomery, and when did she
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  move to Michigan? She moved to Michigan in 1957. She first moved to Montgomery at the age of 11,
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  and then after she married Raymond Parks in 1932, then they made Montgomery their home.
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  As an activist, she was here for about 20 years before losing her job, and he lost his job during
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  the Montgomery bus boycott. Couldn't find work. We're still receiving death threats even after the
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  boycott ended. And her brother had already settled in Michigan and finally convinced them to move up
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  there as well. Donna, you have a unique position overseeing the Rosa Parks Museum at the Troy
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  University Montgomery campus. When you go through this memorabilia, are there new facts that you're
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  learning? Yes, I actually had the opportunity two years ago to go to the Library of Congress and sit
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  down and go through the photographs and the paper documents that they have currently, and then I'm
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  going to Michigan where some of it is still stored at the end of April to go through some of the
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  larger items that the Library of Congress is storing there. But it always kind of gives me chills when
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  I'm in these spaces that these historic figures were in or touch these documents that she sat down
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  at her desk and would make notes on any scrap of paper she could find, the personal experiences,
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  especially that they went through once they moved to Detroit, and the hardships that she and her
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  family faced. She was out speaking at all these engagements and was not really receiving
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  financial support from the NAACP or any of these other organizations, and they were near poverty
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  levels or at poverty levels for much of her adult life. That's something I would imagine most people
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  didn't realize. Donna, I want to ask you about the children's wing of the Rosa Parks Museum, the
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  opportunity to ride that time travel bus. Tell us more about that. Yes, we have our Cleveland Avenue
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  time machine. As you said, it is made to look like the bus she was riding that night in December when
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  she was arrested, but it really gives the contextual background of segregation and how
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  segregation really grew and spread throughout this country and why events like the bus boycott
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  and why her defiance of that Jim Crow segregation system was so powerful. We had all of the technology
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  updated throughout the museum, so we're working on updating, upgrading, expanding the museum from its
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  current footprint, and so the technology upgrades were the first phase of that plan. The Rosa Parks
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  specific exhibit will be phase two, and then phase three will be a complete expansion of the museum,
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  especially in our permanent exhibit space in the main wing of the museum, to bring in more
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  in-depth information about especially the women who played a role in the Montgomery bus boycott
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  and how their stories have largely been overlooked or have been the footnote in the history books,
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  delving into that more, as well as the expanded role that churches and the clergy played in the
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  movement, and then also examining specifically Judge Frank M. Johnson's role, but also the
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  legal aspects surrounding the Montgomery bus boycott that laid the foundation for later
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  civil rights legislation, and so that's kind of phase three. That's a much larger project
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  that will be down the road, and so we're focusing on the Rosa Parks aspect right now. Donna, is there
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  an opportunity for your listeners to contribute to bringing Rosa Parks personal memorabilia home
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  to Alabama to the Rosa Parks Museum? We welcome all donations. We did write the grant application,
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  but that is just a fraction of the overall expense, and so we will be relying on private donations,
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  other grants, to help us really get to the finish line and create this exhibit that showcases how
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  much of an icon she really was that hasn't been covered in the history books. Are contributions
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  tax deductible? They absolutely are, yes. The current exhibition is called Rosa Parks, A Lifetime
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  of Being Rebellious. What are your comments on that? You know, she described herself as having a
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  lifetime of rebellion, and that's what most people, I would say, still don't realize about her. She
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  passed away at the age of 92, and she was out there fighting the good fight for as long as
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  physically possible. Well, Donna, I want to thank you for sharing the news today about this brand
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  new project. You're welcome. Thank you. That was Donna Beisel, Director of Operations at the Troy
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  University Rosa Parks Museum, located on the Troy University Montgomery campus on Montgomery Street.
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  Contributions are welcome in the project to bring Rosa Parks' personal collection of memorabilia
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  back to Montgomery to be housed at the museum. Information about the museum can be found at the
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  troy.edu website. Thanks for joining us today for In Focus, which is a podcast wherever you get
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  your podcasts. I'm Carolyn Hutcheson, and this is listener-supported Troy Public Radio.