Public Transit Group Honors Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks, who took the most famous bus ride in U.S. history, was honored by the American Public Transit Assn. on Wednesday with its first lifetime achievement award.

Parks, now 84, was honored for her refusal on Dec. 1, 1955, to surrender her seat on a segregated Montgomery, Ala., city bus to a white passenger, as the law required. Her arrest sparked a yearlong boycott of Montgomery buses by blacks that propelled the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. into prominence.

“Her quiet, courageous act changed America, its view of black people, and redirected the course of history,” the association said.

“Mrs. Parks sat that our nation could stand taller,” said Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater. “If it had not been for people like Mrs. Parks, many of us would not be here today.”