In conjunction with a national movement, Muncie, Ind. Transit System is commemorating the 50th anniversary of the day Rosa Parks sparked a mass civil rights movement by refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man.
Today, Muncie's bus system will distribute bookmarks to students to teach about Parks and her act of civil disobedience.
Mary Gaston, assistant general manager for MITS, said MITS would also display a poster above the front seat on every bus in Parks' honor.
"We were responding to a call to action by the American Public Transportation Association," she said. "They started making suggestions about things that transit systems could do."
According to the APTA Web site, it is a nonprofit, international association of more than 1,600 organizations including public transportation systems, universities, state departments of transportation and other businesses involved in the transportation businesses.
Virginia Miller, a spokeswoman for APTA, said the group decided to start National Transit Tribute to Rosa Parks Day after Parks died at the end of October.
"Around the time of her death, APTA reached out to its members and asked them, 'What about doing a national transit tribute for Rosa Parks?' And that's how it was born," she said.
Miller said MITS was the only bus system that she knew of in Indiana to participate in the tribute.
"The core principles of equality and access are principles that the transit industry firmly embraces as we serve our riders each and every day," she said.
Gaston said MITS was using the tribute as a chance to inform students.
"It's a simple kind of gesture, but one that we hope will educate the students a little bit," she said.
More than 75 transit corporations nationwide are participating in the tribute.
"After all, it started on a bus," Miller said.
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