Press Release

March 9, 2005

Dignitaries tour Troy University's Rosa Parks Museum

MONTGOMERY , Ala. —Nearly 200 U.S. and South African dignitaries toured Troy University ’s Rosa Parks Museum and Library on Saturday as a part of an annual “pilgrimage through Civil Rights history.”

The delegation, made up of members of the U.S. Congress and their families, other government officials and South African leaders, took part in The Faith and Politics Institute’s Civil Rights pilgrimage March 4-6, including visits of Civil Rights sites in Birmingham , Selma and Montgomery . The group also took part in events surrounding the 40th anniversary of the 1965 Voting Rights March.

The Faith and Politics Institute, which was founded in 1991 to bring together the spiritual and political dimensions of life for those professionally connected to Capitol Hill, organized the first Civil Rights Pilgrimage in 1998. Inspired by civil rights leader and Georgia Congressman John Lewis, the pilgrimage seeks to pass on the inspiration of the Civil Rights Movement to a new generation of leaders.

The group unloaded from their buses around 9 a.m. on Saturday and spent nearly two hours touring the Rosa Parks Museum , which is located on Troy University ’s Montgomery Campus.

"We had a wonderful time during the tour,” said Georgette Norman, director of the museum. “They loved it and were very impressed. Many members of the delegation brought their children along, and the young people were very, very moved.”