Ohio honors Rosa Parks on Dec. 1

COLUMBUS (AP) -- Ohio will observe Rosa Parks Day on Dec. 1, the 50th anniversary of the day she refused to give up her seat in the front of a bus, and a state lawmaker wants to make the designation permanent.
A resolution passed unanimously by the Ohio House on Wednesday makes Ohio the second state to honor Parks, who died last month at the age of 92. The other is Michigan, where Parks made her home in recent years.
The sponsor of the resolution, Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Columbus, said she hopes the Legislature includes the designation in state law next year so that Rosa Parks Day would be recognized every year on Dec. 1.
Parks sparked the modern civil-rights movement on Dec. 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Ala., when she was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a city bus. Her act triggered a 381-day boycott of the bus system led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.