The Upcountry History Museum will welcome “Sitting for Justice – The Montgomery Bus Boycott” exhibit Feb. 14.
The exhibition, which was curated by Delaware Art Museum, features 30 pieces by artists Harvey Dinnerstein and Burt Silverman, who traveled in March 1956, from New York City to Montgomery, Alabama, to document the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a historical event following the December 1955 arrest of Rosa Parks on charges of disorderly conduct after she refused to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man.
Parks’ arrest led to the formation of the Montgomery Improvement Association, which was headed up by 26-year-old Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The Association filed a suit in federal court on behalf of those discriminated against by the bus service. In 1956, the federal court and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Association and declared segregated bus service unconstitutional.
“They are wonderful examples of the work of Dinnerstein and Silverman,” said Heather Campbell Coyle, curator of American art with Delaware Art Museum. “I assembled the exhibition (and) it doesn’t include all of the works in our collection, but it includes most of them. Then, folks from the Upcountry (History Museum) reached out to us within the year we had it.”…