Fight over Rosa Parks home turns to First Amendment issue
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — The Latest on an art project built around a house where Rosa Parks once lived in Detroit (all times local):
3:30 p.m.
A foundation that’s backing an art project built around a Detroit house where Rosa Parks once lived says it’s considering legal options now that Brown University has said the project was canceled.
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The Wisconsin-based Nash Family Foundation says it paid Brown $45,000 and the university agreed to use the money for artist Ryan Mendoza to reconstruct the house in Providence, Rhode Island.
Foundation board member Jim Nash says a Brown professor called him last week to tell him Brown received a cease-and-desist order from an institute that claimed it owned the rights to Rosa Parks’ name.
Brown says it did not breach any agreements.
Mendoza has said he wants to continue with the display, citing his First Amendment rights. He says he’s looking for help from other groups to make that happen.
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10:30 a.m.
The artist who turned a house where Rosa Parks once lived into an art piece says he’s working to ensure the home is displayed in Rhode Island, even after Brown University pulled its support.
Ryan Mendoza says he has a First Amendment right to show the house.
Parks lived in the home for a time after she left the south for Detroit. It was on a demolition list before her niece saved it and worked with Mendoza, who first brought it in pieces to Germany.
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He worked with Brown to bring it to Providence last month, but the Ivy League school canceled on Thursday , citing an unspecified dispute involving an institute that bears Parks’ name.
The house is about 80 percent assembled. Mendoza hopes to complete it and open it to the public.
