The legacies of Alabama natives Rosa Parks and Helen Keller will be soon be honored with statues at the state Capitol.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (R) signed legislation into law this week to create the Women's Tribute Statue Commission to “fund, commission, and place” the statues, the bill states.

ADVERTISEMENT

The bill said that the state legislature found commemorative statues honoring the women to be “worthy” additions to the statehouse grounds.

Parks, born in Tuskegee in 1913, was an African American civil rights icon who famously refused to give up her seat on a bus in 1955. Her brave actions led to the Montgomery bus boycott and became a major event in the civil rights movement.

Keller, who was born in Tuscumbia in 1880, was a political activist and acclaimed author who became the first deaf and blind person to ever earn a bachelor’s degree.

The legislation states that the statue of Parks will be installed in the west front of the Capitol and the one of Keller will be placed on the “grounds of the Capitol in a place where it will be readily accessible to, and touchable by, individuals with disabilities.”