Smithsonian, Google Remember Rosa Parks

Today marks the 55th anniversary of the Montgomery bus boycott and the rise of Rosa Parks into a place of national honor for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger.

At the Smithsonian Institution's website, the historians are using one of their new features -- a weekly Smithsonian Snapshot that offers a peek into the museum's collections "one object at a time" -- to showcase the dress that Parks, a seamstress, had been working on that historic day.

Google is marking the day with a special image on its main page.

For some discussion of the boycott's impact on the nation and the Civil Rights movement, this News & Notes segment from Dec. 1, 2005, is a place to start. Copyright 2011 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.