MCTS Announces 8th Annual Rosa Parks Scholarship

MCTS Rosa Parks Tribute. Photo courtesy of MCTS.

The Milwaukee County Transit System (MCTS) has opened submissions for its 8th annual Rosa Parks Scholarship.

The scholarship awards $1,000 each for three high school seniors to help them pay for higher education. The transit systems announced the opening of applications to coincide with Rosa Parks Day on Dec. 1.

On that day in 1955, Parks was arrested for refusing to surrender her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama. The act of civil disobedience helped ignite the Montgomery bus boycott, which led to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling ending racial segregation on public transit. MCTS honors Parks by placing a rose on a reserved seat on every bus from Dec. 1 to Dec. 3.

“Along with Parks, MCTS would like to honor and recognize civil rights leader Claudette Colvin, who was a key player in the civil rights movement in Alabama during the 1950s,” MCTS said in a statement Thursday. “Colvin, like Parks, refused to give up her seat on a bus on March 2, 1955.”

The annual scholarship asks local students to submit an essay inspired by a quote from Parks, “Each person must live their life as a model for others.”

The scholarship winners will be announced on February 4, which is Rosa Parks’ birthday and Transit Equity Day. In 2023, more than 150 students submitted essays, representing 26 high schools across Milwaukee County.