Rosa Parks once lived in Unit 634 of the Cleveland Court Apartments 620–638, the historic building you have come to in Montgomery, Alabama. This building is significant to the history of the modern Civil Rights Movement in the United States. In Unit 634, civil rights activist Rosa Parks lived with her husband Raymond and her mother, Leona McCauley, during the Montgomery bus boycott from 1955 to 1956.
That tenancy links this address directly to that protest. The building’s historic status is recorded: it was placed on the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage on March 30, 1989, and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 29, 2001. Take a moment to let those dates settle beside the simple street numbers — 620–638 — and the apartment number, 634.
You are looking at a place where personal life and national history met. Stand quietly and picture the life of Unit 634 during 1955–1956, knowing the facts we have here. Notice Unit 634 along the façade of the Cleveland Court Apartments, where personal life once met national history.