New commemorative street sign toppers honoring Civil Rights legend Rosa Parks are now up on Rosa Parks Way in North and Northeast Portland. One hundred sign toppers—designed by renowned painter, educator, and Piedmont resident Arvie Smith—were added to shine a light on the civil rights icon. The City of Portland’s Office of Arts & Culture Bureau of Transportation and Piedmont Neighborhood Association collaborated on the project.
standing in front of a bus.
This project’s history dates back to October 2006, when Portland’s City Council renamed N and NE Portland Boulevard to Rosa Parks Way. The Office of Arts & Culture partnered with the Piedmont Neighborhood Association and neighbors across North and Northeast Portland to design artist-made sign toppers to reflect the street’s renaming and honor the legacy of Rosa Parks.
Following a neighborhood selection process, community members chose Smith—whose practice is grounded in deep research and influenced by thinkers like James Baldwin, Angela Davis, W.E.B Du Bois, Michelle Alexander, and Isabel Wilkerson—to design the sign toppers. The end result of Smith’s work depicts Rosa Parks in the foreground looking out the window of a bus with a side profile of a bus—the same one she rode along Cleveland Avenue in Montgomery, Alabama—in the background.