Chapel Hill Transit employees will turn into actors today to remember an African-American woman who took a stand after she was denied equal access to the services they provide every day.
As part of the town’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day week-long celebration for town employees, transit workers will reenact Rosa Parks’s historic bus sit-in.
The employees-turned-actors have named the program “Why Should I Move?”
Chapel Hill Transit Director Steve Spade said the play will feature an older Rosa Parks, played by transit employee Michelle Sykes, reminiscing on the historic day when Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery City bus in Alabama on Dec. 1, 1955.
In the background, other employees will also help reenact that day.
“Since we are a bus company we thought it would be a good idea to do something about Rosa Parks,” said Sheila Neville, a Chapel Hill Transit bus driver who is also playing the role of young Parks.
Chapel Hill became one of the first towns in North Carolina to recognize Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a town holiday in 1984— two years before it was a national holiday.
But this past week marked its largest and most inclusive celebration ever.
The festivities expanded from a one-day event to a week-long observance running Jan. 9 to Jan. 16.