USPS issues Rosa Parks stamp on civil rights pioneer's 100th birthday

Councilwoman Joann Watson, from left, Lloyd Wesley, Jr., Detroit postmaster, Elaine Eason Steele, co-founder of the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development, and Sen. Carl Levin applaud at the unveiling of the Rosa Parks' 100th birthday commemorative postage stamp at the Museum of African American History in Detroit today.

DEARBORN, Mich.  — The U.S. Postal Service has issued a Rosa Parks stamp on what would have been the late civil rights icon's 100th birthday.

The Rosa Parks Forever Stamp went on sale today, and an oversized version was unveiled during the National Day of Courage celebration at The Henry Ford museum in Dearborn.

The stamp bears an artist's rendering of a 1950s-era photo of Parks.

Deputy Postmaster General Ronald Stroman described Parks as being "the epitome of courage."

Parks was arrested in 1955 for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Ala., bus to a white man, an act that helped bring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to prominence.

Stroman and others later took a seat on the Rosa Parks bus, which is on permanent display inside the museum.