How better to honour the woman whose refusal to give up her seat on the bus to a white customer helped spark a wave of momentum to the civil rights movement?
A bus company in Virginia took the opportunity to mark what would have been Parks’ 103rd birthday by reserving the front seat on all of its buses in her name. Electronic messages on the buses also displayed special messages to recall her actions.
“Ms Parks is most well-known for her act of defiance on a Montgomery, bus on December 1 1955 that changed the course of history. On that date, Ms. Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger,” said the Greater Richmond Transit Company (GRTC).
“She was arrested and fined. Four days later, in response to Ms. Parks’ arrest, a year-long bus boycott began. It ended when the Supreme Court ruled that segregation on public transportation was illegal.”
The company put commemorative signs on seats, which read: “It all started on a bus”. It also showed the now iconic photograph of Parks sitting towards the front of the bus.
Parks, known as the “mother of the freedom movement”, passed away at the age of 92 in 2005 and was the first woman whose body lay in state in the US Capitol.
