Metro honors Rosa Parks on her birthday with a special reserved seat on every bus and train

Today, Metro is honoring Civil Rights pioneer Rosa Parks on her birthday, Feb. 4. To acknowledge the day, Metro is placing signs on all trains and buses, reserving a single seat for Parks and her history-changing act of brave civil disobedience against racial segregation on public transit.

Her actions -- refusing to give up her seat on a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955 and the subsequent arrest that launched a bus boycott -- helped change public transit and the world.

Metro has previously honored Parks’ legacy by reserving a seat with a special sign on all buses, and for the first time, a reserved seat will be saved on every train as well.

The sign features an image of Parks saying, “Today, this seat is reserved in honor of Rosa Parks.”

The tribute comes on what would have been her 112th birthday. 

This year also marks the 20th anniversary of Metro’s historic Rosa Parks bus. The commemorative bus is the same model she protested on and was refurbished in 2005 after Parks’ death. It was used in the procession for her memorial service in D.C. The exterior of the bus reads "It All Started on a Bus: Rosa Parks, 1913-2005; The Mother of the Civil Rights Movement.”