Rosa Parks Sculpture by Kensington Man & Partner at US Capitol

Kensington resident Rob Firmin and his professional partner were honored in Washington, D.C., Wednesday when their statue of civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks was added to the National Statuary Hall Gallery in the Capitol.

The unveiling ceremony featured President Barack Obama and Congressional leaders, in addition to Firmin and his partner, sculptor Eugene Daub of San Pedro, Calif.

Congressman George Miller, whose district includes Kensington, said in a statement:

“I am so proud that Dr. Rob Firmin, a constituent and an accomplished sculptor from Kensington, was an integral part of today’s historic occasion.  He and his studio partner, Eugene Daub, were selected from hundreds of submissions by the Joint committee on the Library of the United States Congress and have completed a truly stunning likeness of a true civil rights and American icon.”

Parks, an African American, helped ignite the desegregation movement in December 1955 when she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a crowded segregated bus in Montgomery, Ala.

The bronze and granite sculpture is "the first full sized statue authorized and funded by Congress since 1873 and the first statue of an African American woman in the U.S. Capitol," Miller's office said.

Firmin conducted historical research and created a model of the statue, and the chief sculpting work was done by Daub with assistance from Firmin, according to Miller press secretary Peter Whippy.

It was selected from hundreds of submissions by the Congressional Joint Committee on the Library of Congress, according to Miller's office.

The statue was placed in the National Statuary Hall, where the number of statues is limited.

So to make room for it, the statue of Robert E. Lee, commanding general of the Confederate forces in the Civil War, was removed, Whippy said. At the same time, Whippy said, Firmin noted that the statue of Parks is gazing directly at Jefferson Davis, who was president of the Confederacy. 

"It's kind of poetic justice in a sense," he said.