She was forcibly removed from the bus and arrested by the two policemen, Thomas J. "[33] "I'm not disappointed. "So did the teachers, too. The problem arose because all the seats on the bus were taken. Nobody can doubt the height of her character, nobody can doubt the depth of her Christian commitment and devotion to the teachings of Jesus." She made history at the young age of 15 by refusing to give up her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama to a white woman. - Claudette Colvin On March 2, 1955, an impassioned teenager, fed up with the daily injustices of Jim Crow segregation, refused to give her seat to a white woman on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Colvin could not attend the proclamation due to health concerns. ", A personal tragedy for her was seen as a political liability by the town's civil rights leaders. Colvin is not exactly bitter. She said, "They've already called it the Rosa Parks museum, so they've already made up their minds what the story is. I can still vividly hear the click of those keys. It is a letter Colvin knew nothing about. It is the historian who has decided for his own reasons that Caesar's crossing of that petty stream, the Rubicon, is a fact of history, whereas the crossing of the Rubicon by millions of other people before or since interests nobody at all.". If the bus became so crowded that all the "white seats" in the front of the bus were filled until white people were standing, any African Americans were supposed to get up from nearby seats to make room for whites, move further to the back, and stand in the aisle if there were no free seats in that section. She was detained on March 2, 1955, in . "[38], Colvin's role has not gone completely unrecognized. Soon afterwards, on 5 December, 40,000 African-American bus passengers boycotted the system and that afternoon, black leaders met to form the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), electing a young pastor, Martin Luther King Jr, as their president. Taylor Branch. But, unlike Parks, Colvin never made it into the civil rights hall of fame. On 2 March 1955, Colvin and her friends finished their classes and were let out of school early. ", Everyone, including Colvin, agreed that it was news of her pregnancy that ultimately persuaded the local black hierarchy to abandon her as a cause clbre. Parks," her former attorney, Fred Gray, told Newsweek. When the trial was held, Colvin pleaded innocent but was found guilty and released on indefinite probation in her parents' care. But what I do remember is when they asked me to stick my arms out the window and that's when they handcuffed me," Colvin says. It was a case of 'bourgey' blacks looking down on the working-class blacks. The police arrived and convinced a black man sitting behind the two women to move so that Mrs. Hamilton could move back, but Colvin still refused to move. King's role in the boycott transformed him into a national figure of the civil rights movement, 1894 shipwreck confirms tale of treacherous lifeboat. The policeman grabbed her and took her to a patrolman's car in which his colleagues were waiting. "They did think I was nutty and crazy.". On the night of Parks' arrest, the Women's Political Council (WPC), a group of black women working for civil rights, began circulating flyers calling for a boycott of the bus system. Colvin was not invited officially for the formal dedication of the museum, which opened to the public in September 2016. Somehow, as Mrs. So he turned on the black men sitting behind her. Funeral Services will be held Saturday, April 20, 2013 at 11:00 a.m. at the Ft. Deposit Municipal Complex with Pastor. Eclipsed by Parks, her act of defiance was largely ignored for many years. This movement took place in the United States. But also let them know that the attorneys took four other women to the Supreme Court to challenge the law that led to the end of segregation. Like Parks, she, too, pleaded not guilty to. She told me to let Rosa be the one: white people aren't going to bother Rosa, they like her". function fbl_init(){ Claudette Colvin: The 15-year-old who came before Rosa Parks 10 March 2018 Alamy By Taylor-Dior Rumble BBC World Service In March 1955, nine months before Rosa Parks defied segregation laws by. Colvins feisty testimony was instrumental in the shocking success of the suit, which ended segregated seating on Montgomerys buses. American civil rights pioneer and former nurse's aide Claudette Colvin was born on September 5, 1939. image credit; BBC. And, like Parks, the local black establishment started to rally support nationwide for her cause. A 15-year-old high school student at the time, Colvin got fed up and refused to move even before Parks. Blake persisted. [34], Colvin has often said she is not angry that she did not get more recognition; rather, she is disappointed. I felt inspired by these women because my teacher taught us about them in so much detail," she says. The once-quiet student was branded a troublemaker by some, and she had to drop out of college. Keep supporting great journalism by turning off your ad blocker. "Had it not been for Claudette Colvin, Aurelia Browder, Susie McDonald, and Mary Louise Smith, there may not have been a Thurgood Marshall, a Martin Luther King or a Rosa Parks. "She lived in a little shack. 2023 BBC. This was partially a product of the outward face the NAACP was trying to broadcast and partially a product of the women fearing losing their jobs, which were often in the public school system. [21], She also said in the 2009 book Claudette Colvin: Twice Towards Justice, by Phillip Hoose, that one of the police officers sat in the back seat with her. She was convicted on all charges, appealed and lost again. Roy White, who was in charge of most of the project, asked Colvin if she would like to appear in a video to tell her story, but Colvin refused. Although some of the details might seem familiar, this is not the Rosa Parks story. And I just kept blabbing things out, and I never stopped. In the south, male ministers made up the overwhelming majority of leaders. Complexity, with all its nuances and shaded realities, is a messy business. He was born on March 3, 1931, in Mound City, S.D., the son of Alfred Gunderson and Verna Johnson Gunderson. [15], In 1955, Colvin was a student at the segregated Booker T. Washington High School in the city. The Montgomery bus boycott was then called off after a few months. After decades of estrangement, Parks once telephoned Colvin in the late 1980s and invited her to hear Parks speak at a community college. They sent a delegation to see the commissioner, and after a few meetings they appeared to have reached an understanding that the harassment would stop and that Colvin would be allowed to clear her name. However, some white passengers still refused to sit near a black person. This made her very scared that they would sexually assault her because this happened frequently. The case, organized and filed in federal court by civil rights attorney Fred Gray, challenged city bus segregation in Montgomery as unconstitutional. "I felt like Sojourner Truth was pushing down on one shoulder and Harriet Tubman was pushing down on the othersaying, 'Sit down girl!' The law at the time designated seats for black passengers at the back and for whites at the front, but left the middle as a murky no man's land. [43] The judge ordered that the juvenile record be expunged and destroyed in December 2021, stating that Colvin's refusal had "been recognized as a courageous act on her behalf and on behalf of a community of affected people". "I became very active in her youth group and we use to meet every Sunday afternoon at the Luther church," she says. The lighter you were, it was generally thought, the better; the closer your skin tone was to caramel, the closer you were perceived to be to whatever power structure prevailed, and the more likely you were to attract suspicion from those of a darker hue. Claudette Colvin was born on September 5, 1939, in Montgomery, Alabama. I heard about the court decision on the news, Colvin recalled. The three other girls got up; Colvin stayed put. But they dont say that Columbus discovered America; they should say, for the European people, that is, you know, their discovery of the new world. They forced her into the back of a squad car, one officer jumping in after her. But somewhere en route they mislaid the truth. [16] Referring to the segregation on the bus and the white woman: "She couldn't sit in the same row as us because that would mean we were as good as her". The NMAAHC has a section dedicated to Rosa Parks, which Colvin does not want taken away, but her family's goal is to get the historical record right, and for officials to include Colvin's part of history. Much of the writing on civil rights history in Montgomery has focused on the arrest of Parks, another woman who refused to give up her seat on the bus, nine months after Colvin. With funding from church donations and activities organized by the chapter, Colvin had her day in court. Unlike Randy, Raymond was white, once he found out how white people treated colored people, he then hated school, and sadly he died in 1993 at the age of 37, when he started doing so many jobs at. She says she expected some abuse from the driver, but nothing more. I was glued to my seat," she later told Newsweek. "She gave me the feeling that I was the Moses that God had sent to Pharaoh," said Fred Gray, the lawyer who went on to represent her. "I wasn't frightened but disappointed and angry because I knew I was sitting in the right seat.". In 2016, the Smithsonian Institution and its National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) were challenged by Colvin and her family, who asked that Colvin be given a more prominent mention in the history of the civil rights movement. She refused to give up her seat on a bus months before Rosa Parks' more famous protest. "It would have been different if I hadn't been pregnant, but if I had lived in a different place or been light-skinned, it would have made a difference, too. In July 2014, Claudette Colvin's story was documented in a television episode of Drunk History (Montgomery, AL (Season 2, Episode 1)). Colvin went to her job instead. She sat down in the front of the bus and refused to move on her own will when asked. "I had almost a life history of being rebellious against being mistreated against my colour," she said. Meanwhile, Parks had been transformed from a politically-conscious activist to an upstanding, unfortunate Everywoman. It was not your tired feet, but your strength of character and resolve that inspired us." You have to take a stand and say, 'This is not right.'. Unable to find work in Montgomery, Colvin moved to New York in 1958, while her son Raymond remained behind with family. "It took on the form of harassment. . The United States District Court ruled the state of Alabama and Montgomery's bus segregation laws were unconstitutional. As an adult, she worked as a nurse's assistant in New . "And since it had to happen, I'm happy it happened to a person like Mrs Parks," said Martin Luther King from the pulpit of the Holt Street Baptist Church. Broken-down cars sit outside tumble-down houses. [28] Colvin stated she was branded a troublemaker by many in her community. A year later, on 20 December 1956, the US Supreme Court ruled that segregation on the buses must end. Biography and associated logos are trademarks of A+E Networksprotected in the US and other countries around the globe. [2] She was also a member of the NAACP Youth Council, where she formed a close relationship with her mentor, Rosa Parks. Rembert said, "I know people have heard her name before, but I just thought we should have a day to celebrate her." Born on September 5 #12. [39], In 2019, a statue of Rosa Parks was unveiled in Montgomery, Alabama, and four granite markers were also unveiled near the statue on the same day to honor four plaintiffs in Browder v. 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