Rosa Parks will never be forgotten for the key role she played in the American Civil Rights Movement when she refused to comply with bus segregation in 1955. Now, an American artist in Berlin hopes to help preserve another, lesser-known piece of her history.
Parks’ first home in Detroit, where she moved from Montgomery, Alabama two years after setting off the city’s bus boycott, was slated for demolition. It had become blighted, but Parks’ niece Rhea McCauley was trying desperately to find a way to save it.
“I'm so completely blessed and honored that Ryan came forward,” McCauley told the Detroit Free Press. “Doors have been slammed in my face.”
Ryan is Ryan Mendoza, an American artist who lives in Europe but has repurposed several Detroit homes for projects in the past. McCauley bought her aunt’s house from the city for $500 but couldn’t raise enough money to preserve it.
The home bore some scars of the racism of the time — Parks had bricks thrown through her window and threatening drive-bys — showing that even after leaving the South the Civil Rights icon faced discrimination.
“She loved the city, but I don't think the city loved her very much back,” said McCauley, who thinks her aunt’s legacy should be preserved with a museum. “This house should have been preserved here. But we live in a world where every other project takes precedence.”
Mendoza said even though he isn’t the perfect person to save the house, he couldn’t let it be destroyed.
“It should be somebody in the black community doing this, not a white guy. I'm not even from Detroit,” Mendoza said. “But my choice was ... Do I leave Rosa Parks' house to be demolished by the city, or do I step up and say’ OK, I'm going to help (McCauley) preserve the memory and save this house?’ That's what this project is all about.”
The artist hopes to take it on tour of museums in Europe while he “holds the house hostage.”
“America, you lost this house,” Mendoza said. “America, you gotta get it back. And it's going to cost you. And I want that money to go to the Rosa Parks foundation.”