More than half a century after Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus in Montgomery, Alabama, prompting an 11-month boycott that led to integration of that city’s bus system, African Americans and Latinos are still struggling with an unequal transit system.
“Back of the Bus: mass transit, race, and inequality,” an hour-long NPR show by Transportation Nation is a sobering study of how mass transit systems not only isolate and destroy minority communities, but work against low-income people in general. The story looks at mass transit projects in St. Paul, Atlanta, Washington, Denver, and Oakland. Take a look at it: