North High Street between Broad and Gay streets was ceremonially renamed "Rosa Parks Way" on Monday morning.
Mayor Andrew Ginther, U.S. Rep. Joyce Beatty and COTA representatives commemorated Parks by revealing the new street sign downtown.
“Today is a celebration,” says Beatty, who represents Ohio’s 3rd District. “Today is honoring someone, and I too believe, if she were standing here today, she would look at this audience and she would say, ‘We are the power of one.’”
The event was held in honor of Black History Month and Parks’ civil rights contributions. Parks famously refused to sit in the back of a bus in Alabama in 1955, sparking the Montgomery bus boycott and a legal fight against segregation laws.
“Black History Month is celebrated every day,” Beatty says. “Because black history is American history.”
This is the 15th year that Ohio has paid tribute to Parks.
“She was so much more than that strong powerful woman on that December day in Alabama when she decided to make a statement – a statement for justice, a statement for children, a statement for all Americans that she was going to sit down," Beatty says.
The newly-named street is located in front of COTA’s offices and, of course, a bus stop.