US Postal Service issues Rosa Parks stamp

The US Postal Service's latest stamp honours the achievements of 'mother of the freedom movement' Rosa Parks. The Forever stamp carries a portrait of Parks, an American activist who made history by refusing to give up her seat in the blacks section of a bus to a white man. Her arrest for this defiance of the law led to a boycott of the Montgomery bus system, with the Supreme Court conceding after a year that the blacks and whites segregation system on buses was 'unconstitutional'.

Rosa Parks was born in Alabama in 1913 to parents of African, Cherokee and Scots-Irish descent. She was aged 42 at the time of her arrest for the bus incident and after her arrest, became an icon of the Civil Rights movement, working with leaders including Martin Luther King and Edgar Nixon. In recognition of her fight for civil rights, she was awarded the Springarn Medal, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal.

The stamp features a portrait of Rosa specially created by artist Thomas Blackshear II, with design work by art director Derry Noyes.

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