DEARBORN, Mich. – On this day, 70 years ago, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, sparking the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a turning point in the Civil Rights Movement.
Parks was arrested on Dec. 1, 1955, after she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery city bus.
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This incited a boycott of the city’s bus system. The Montgomery Bus Boycott lasted 381 days and ended with the Supreme Court ruling that segregated seating was unconstitutional. This ruling came on Nov. 14, 1956.
Now, that very bus where Parks refused to give up her seat is at The Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation in Dearborn, Michigan.
Here’s everything to know about how the museum tracked down the bus and restored it:
How was the bus identified as the Rosa Parks bus?
When Parks was arrested in 1955, the identification number of the bus wasn’t included in any official documents.
After the bus was retired in the 1970s, a man named Roy H. Summerford purchased it. According to The Henry Ford, he and his descendants kept the bus in a field and used it to store lumber and tools.
Once the man died, the president of an Internet auction house began searching for documents to confirm its authenticity, so he could auction it off for Summerford’s daughter and son-in-law.
He ended up finding just one that proved it was, in fact, the Rosa Parks bus.
According to The Henry Ford, Charles H. Cummings, the city’s bus station manager, kept a scrapbook of newspaper articles during the bus boycott.
Next to the article that detailed Parks’ arrest, the manager wrote #2857 and Blake/#2857. James Blake was the Montgomery bus driver who had Parks arrested.
After his death, Cummings’ family members said he had noted the bus number due to the importance of what had happened.
“Often, as in this case, historical truth is not officially recorded, but is passed along in private memoirs and oral tradition,” according to The Henry Ford.
The Henry Ford bids on Rosa Parks bus
Then, in September 2001, the Wall Street Journal published an article announcing an online auction for the Rosa Parks bus.
The Henry Ford said at this point, they quickly began researching the opportunity, talking to several people who were involved in the 1955 events and other historians.
A forensic examiner was hired to confirm that the scrapbook with the newspaper articles and bus ID number were real, and a museum conservator traveled to Montgomery to personally look at the bus.
After this, the museum was convinced that this was really the Rosa Parks bus and took part in the October 25, 2001 auction.
According to the museum, bidding started at $50,000.
Bidding went on until 2 a.m., and The Henry Ford outbid the Smithsonian, the City of Denver, and several others for the bus.
Rosa Parks bus undergoes restoration
After sitting in that Montgomery field for three decades, the bus needed some extensive restoration work before it hit the museum floors.
It had several broken windows, the metal had rusted, the engine was removed, and its original paint colors could hardly be seen, according to The Henry Ford.
MSX International, based in Southfield, outbid other companies and was selected for the project work at a cost of more than $300,000.
As MSX and museum conservation staff worked together to restore the bus, they reused original materials wherever they could and used parts from identical buses.
The project also received federal grants to help cover the costs of the project, and was first put on display for guests on Feb. 1, 2003, for The Henry Ford’s “Celebrate Black History” program.
How can I see the Rosa Parks bus?
The bus remains on display in the museum’s “With Liberty and Justice for All exhibit.
For the 70th anniversary of Parks’ arrest, The Henry Ford is offering free admission from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 1, 2025.
The Henry Ford is located at 20900 Oakwood Boulevard in Dearborn. For more information about the museum and its other venues, which include Greenfield Village and the Ford Rouge Factory Tour, click here.