The house from Detroit, which was once home to the brother of civil rights icon Rosa Parks and his family, has been the subject of a dispute over whether Parks lived there after her move from the south. Now an art installation, the house will be on display March 31st and April 1st at the Waterfire Arts Center in Providence.
WaterFire will display the reconstructed house, that was once owned by Parks’s brother, in a celebration of the life of Rosa Parks. The free events will include community and panel discussions, music, and poetry.
Rosa Parks’s niece, Rhea McCauley, who saved the house from demolition in Detroit, describes dinners with her aunt in the home and says Parks stayed there when she first moved to Detroit.
McCauley believes this house tells a history that’s largely absent from the public conversation around Parks, including the racism she faced after moving from Alabama to Detroit in the wake of the bus boycott, and the difficulty she had finding a job and stable housing once she got there.
“You know we have this opportunity through the house to really tell the clear history of the true Rosa Parks, and it’s a missing gap in our history book,” said McCauley.
Artist Ryan Mendoza bought the house from McCauley and displayed in Berlin, Germany for a year and a half before bringing it back to the United States. Mendoza is finishing reconstructing the house with the help of the nonprofit YouthBuild Providence and hired architects.
“This is unfinished business, as is the Civil Rights Movement. So, it’s actually, its a snapshot of where we are right now, not being adequately funded to finish the project. The house itself feels much like an outcast in its own country,” said Mendoza.
The “Rosa Parks House Project” was originally to be displayed as part of an exhibit at Brown University. However, earlier this month, Brown canceled the exhibit, citing a dispute involving the structure. The dispute, with The Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development, a nonprofit that was co-founded by Parks before she died, and owns the rights to her name and likeness, includes the institute’s denial of claims that Parks ever lived there.
The fate of the house is in question as it currently has no home. WaterFire is exploring possibilities of keeping it for at least two months.
Editor’s note: This post has been changed to reflect that Brown cited a dispute in explaining its decision not to exhibit the home. The dispute with the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute includes questions about McCauley’s claim that Parks lived in the home.
