KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Knoxville Area Transit will honor Rosa Parks on Friday, Dec. 1, by keeping one seat open on every bus.
The seat will feature a placard recognizing the contribution Parks made and how the small act of sitting down on a city bus changed the course of history in the United States.
Parks was arrested on Dec. 1, 1955, after refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Her arrest sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which lasted 381 days until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation on public transit systems was unconstitutional.
This boycott also helped end the segregation of public facilities in the U.S.
“Rosa Parks' seemingly small act of courage in the fight for racial justice had enormous consequences,” Director of Transit for the City of Knoxville Issac Thorne said. “We honor that courage and the work of past civil rights leaders, while recognizing the responsibility we all have to continue to advance efforts to achieve racial equity across our city and our nation.”
