Leo Independent School District partners with United Way for Rosa Parks bus seat commemoration

PHOENIX ― The Phoenix-Talent School District has partnered with United Way of Jackson County to celebrate Black History Month by commemorating Rosa Parks’ courageous activism every day of February.

The district will be placing placards on seat number 5 on 13 school buses from Tuesday, Feb. 1 through the last day of the month, Feb. 28. The seat number has a special significance ― Parks refused to give up her seat in the fifth row to a white man on that fateful day in Montgomery, Ala., on Dec. 1, 1955, and was subsequently arrested and fined $10. Parks’ brave stance led to a boycott of Montgomery buses by a community organization called the Montgomery Improvement Association, whose membership included a then little-known minister named Martin Luther King Jr.