Mankato transit reserves a seat for Rosa Parks

Dec. 1—MANKATO — Starting Wednesday and continuing through Dec. 8, one seat on every Mankato transit bus will be reserved in honor of Rosa Parks — the second year the city bus system has paid tribute to the civil rights icon.

A sign on each reserved seat states: "This seat is saved in honor of Rosa Parks, whose quiet strength made a seat available to everyone."

Partnering with the city were the Greater Mankato Diversity Council, Mankato YWCA and Blue Earth County.

"Last year was the first time we did it," said City Manager Susan Arntz. "I think it's a great awareness for, No. 1, our public transit consumers. And when we talk about it outside of the bus, it's good for the public to be aware and learn the courage that it took but also that we have more work to do."

The poster on each bus includes the Parks' quotation: "To bring about change, you must not be afraid to take the first step. We will fail when we fail to try."

There's also a QR code linking to books for all ages of readers available through the Blue Earth County Library about Parks, whose actions spawned a movement that eventually led to the end of racial segregation in public accommodations.

It began Dec. 1, 1955, when Parks — a department store seamstress on her way home after work — refused to give up her seat to a white passenger while riding a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Parks was sitting in the first row of the "colored section" of the bus. Under the rules of the bus service, if the seats in the white section of the bus filled up, whites could demand Black passengers move farther to the back and claim their seats.

Parks' refusal prompted her arrest. A 381-day boycott of the municipal bus service followed, ending only after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that bus segregation violated the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.

"Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was appointed the spokesperson for the Bus Boycott and taught nonviolence to all participants," according to the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development. "Contingent with the protest in Montgomery, others took shape throughout the south and the country. They took form as sit-ins, eat-ins, swim-ins, and similar causes. Thousands of courageous people joined the 'protest' to demand equal rights for all people."

Parks worked throughout her life to educate youth about Black history and the civil rights movement. By the time of her death in 2005, she had received more than 40 honorary doctorate degrees from universities, was granted the U.S. Medal of Freedom and named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century.