Nine months before Parks's arrest, a 15-year-old girl, Claudette Colvin, was thrown off a bus in the same town and in almost identical circumstances. But somewhere en route they mislaid the truth. They never came and discussed it with my parents. In August that year, a 14-year-old boy called Emmet Till had said, "Bye, baby", to a woman at a store in nearby Mississippi, and was fished out of the nearby Tallahatchie river a few days later, dead with a bullet in his skull, his eye gouged out and one side of his forehead crushed. "Never. "They'd call her a bad girl, and her case wouldn't have a chance. I don't know how I got off that bus but the other students said they manhandled me off the bus and put me in the squad car. They had threatened to throw her out of the Booker T Washington school for wearing her hair in plaits. The story of Colvins courage might have been forgotten forever had not Frank Sikora, a Birmingham newspaper reporter assigned in 1975 to write a retrospective of the bus boycott, remembered that there had been a girl arrested before Parks. Fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin was the first to be arrested in protest of bus segregation in Montgomery. Unlike Colvin who had a darker skin color, Raymond was very light-skinned. Claudette Colvin was born on September 5, 1939, in Montgomery, Alabama. Claudette Colvin, Who Was Arrested for Refusing to Give Up Her Bus Seat in 1955, Is Fighting to Clear Her Record The civil rights pioneer pushed back against segregation nine months before Rosa. Rosa Parks stated: "If the white press got ahold of that information, they would have [had] a field day. [9] When they took Claudette in, the Colvins lived in Pine Level, a small country town in Montgomery County, the same town where Rosa Parks grew up. Instead of being celebrated as Rosa Parks would be just nine months later, fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin found herself shunned by her . On 2 March 1955, Colvin and her friends finished their classes and were let out of school early. I think that history only has room enough for certainyou know, how many icons can you choose? By Monday, the day the boycott began, Colvin had already been airbrushed from the official version of events. My mother knew I was disappointed with the system and all the injustice we were receiving and she said to me: 'Well, Claudette, you finally did it.'". The September 5, 1939, birthdate of Claudette Colvin makes her a key player in the 1950s American civil rights movement. Parks became one of Time Magazine's 100 most important people of the 20th century . . Two more kicks soon followed. She sat in the colored section about two seats away from an emergency exit, in a Capitol Heights bus. Claudette Colvin was born Claudette Austin in Montgomery, Alabama, on September 5, 1939, to Mary Jane Gadson and C. P. Austin. "It took on the form of harassment. I say it felt as though Harriet Tubman's hands were pushing me down on one shoulder and Sojourner Truth's hands were pushing me down on the other shoulder. [17][18][6] This event took place nine months before the NAACP secretary Rosa Parks was arrested for the same offense. Mothers expressed concern about permitting their children on the buses. 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. Associated With. Eclipsed by Parks, her act of defiance was largely ignored for many years. The pace of life is so slow and the mood so mellow that local residents look as if they have been wading through molasses in a half-hearted attempt to catch up with the past 50 years. [51], National Museum of African American History and Culture, "Power Dynamics of a Segregated City: Class, Gender, and Claudette Colvin's Struggle for Equality", "Before Rosa Parks, Claudette Colvin Stayed in Her Bus Seat", "From Footnote to Fame in Civil Rights History", "Before Rosa Parks, A Teenager Defied Segregation On An Alabama Bus", "Chapter 1 (excerpt): 'Up From Pine Level', "#ThrowbackThursday: The girl who acted before Rosa Parks", "Claudette Colvin: an unsung hero in the Montgomery Bus Boycott", "The Origins of the Montgomery Bus Boycott", "A Forgotten Contribution: Before Rosa Parks, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin refused to give up her seat on the bus", "Claudette Colvin: First to keep her seat", "Claudette Colvin | Americans Who Tell The Truth", "Claudette Colvin: the woman who refused to give up her bus seat nine months before Rosa Parks", "2 other bus boycott heroes praise Parks' acclaim", "This once-forgotten civil rights hero deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom", "Chairman Crowley Honors Civil Rights Pioneer Claudette Colvin", "The Other Rosa Parks: Now 73, Claudette Colvin Was First to Refuse Giving Up Seat on Montgomery Bus", "Claudette Colvin Seeks Greater Recognition For Role In Making Civil Rights History", "Weekend: Civil rights heroine Claudette Colvin", "Claudette Colvin honored by Montgomery council", "Alabama unveils statue of civil rights icon Rosa Parks", "Rosa Parks statue unveiled in Alabama on anniversary of her refusal to give up seat", "She refused to move bus seats months before Rosa Parks. Raymond Colvin, age 62, a resident of Ft. Deposit, AL, died April 13, 2013. Two police officers arrived and pulled her from her seat. 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. ", The upshot was that Colvin was left in an incredibly vulnerable position. Phillip Hoose is author of Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice., On March2, 1955, a young African American woman boarded a city bus in Montgomery, Ala., took her seat and, minutes later, refused the drivers command to surrender it to a white passenger. The court, however, ruled against her and put her on probation. "We walked downtown and my friends and I saw the bus and decided to get on, it was right across the road from Dr Martin Luther King's church," Colvin says. Best Known For: Claudette Colvin is an activist who was a pioneer in the civil rights movement in Alabama during the 1950s. "He asked us both to get up. Almost nine months after Colvins bus protest, she heard news reports that Parks, a 42-year-old seamstress, had likewise been arrested for a bus seating protest. .css-m6thd4{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;display:block;margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;font-family:Gilroy,Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.2;font-weight:bold;color:#323232;text-transform:capitalize;}@media (any-hover: hover){.css-m6thd4:hover{color:link-hover;}}How the Greensboro Four Began the Sit-In Movement, Biography: You Need to Know: Bayard Rustin, Biography: You Need to Know: Sylvia Rivera, Biography: You Need to Know: Dorothy Pittman Hughes, 10 Influential Asian American and Pacific Islander Activists. "[22] Colvin was handcuffed, arrested, and forcibly removed from the bus. The three black passengers sitting alongside Parks rose reluctantly. Ward and Paul Headley. [16], Through the trial Colvin was represented by Fred Gray, a lawyer for the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), which was organizing civil rights actions. "Oh God," wailed one black woman at the back. [34], Colvin has often said she is not angry that she did not get more recognition; rather, she is disappointed. After her refusal to give up her seat, Colvin was arrested on several charges, including violating the city's segregation laws. The majority of customers on the bus system were African American, but they were discriminated against by its custom of segregated seating. Councilman Larkin's sister was on the bus in 1955 when Colvin was arrested. "I wasn't with it at all. Why has Claudette Colvin been denied her place in history? Colvin was not invited officially for the formal dedication of the museum, which opened to the public in September 2016. If she had not done what she did, I am not sure that we would have been able to mount the support for Mrs. When Colvin moved to New York many years later to become a nurse, she didn't tell many people about the part she played in the civil rights movement. [29], Colvin gave birth to a son, Raymond, in March 1956. Colvin never married but gave birth to two sons, the first was Raymond Colvin (b. December 1955, died 1993). "She lived in a little shack. [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. Gayle, including Colvin[40][41][42], In 2021 Colvin applied to the family court in Montgomery County, Alabama to have her juvenile record expunged. For all her bravado, Colvin was shocked by the extremity of what happened next. Rita Dove penned the poem "Claudette Colvin Goes to Work," which later became a song. And that person, it transpired, would be Rosa Parks. [28] Colvin stated she was branded a troublemaker by many in her community. "For a while, there was a real distance between me and Mrs Parks over this. She was arrested and became one of four plaintiffs in Browder v. Gayle, which ruled that Montgomery's segregated bus system was unconstitutional. You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked. She refused to give up her seat on a bus months before Rosa Parks' more famous protest. Aster is known as a talisman of love and an enduring symbol of elegance. [Mrs Hamilton] said she was not going to get up and that she had paid her fare and that she didn't feel like standing," recalls Colvin. They forced her into the back of a squad car, one officer jumping in after her. "When I was in the ninth grade, all the police cars came to get Jeremiah," says Colvin. He was born on March 3, 1931, in Mound City, S.D., the son of Alfred Gunderson and Verna Johnson Gunderson. [4], "The bus was getting crowded, and I remember the bus driver looking through the rearview mirror asking her [Colvin] to get up for the white woman, which she didn't," said Annie Larkins Price, a classmate of Colvin. I knew what was happening, but I just kept trying to shut it out.". [20] In a later interview, she said: "We couldn't try on clothes. Everybody knew. She was 15. "We had unpaved streets and outside toilets. She gave birth to a fair-skin child named Raymond in the year 1956 whose skin tone was similar to her partner. The bus driver had the authority to assign the seats, so when more white passengers got on the bus, he asked for the seats.". Tour: Black America and the burden of the perfect victim. He was . They'd call her a bad girl, and her case wouldn't have a chance."[6][8]. "Are you going to stand up?" The young Ms. Colvin was portrayed by actress Mariah Iman Wilson. She prayed furiously as they sped out, with the cop leering over her, guessing at her bra size. ", 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. If I had told my father who did it, he would have killed him. "I wasn't frightened but disappointed and angry because I knew I was sitting in the right seat.". 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. "We just sat there and waited for it all to happen," says Gloria Hardin, who was on the bus, too. In a United States district court, she testified before the three-judge panel that heard the case. It is time for President Obama to. Claudette Colvin gave birth to a son named Raymond in the same year 1955. "It was partly because of her colour and because she was from the working poor," says Gwen Patton, who has been involved in civil rights work in Montgomery since the early 60s. How the Greensboro Four Began the Sit-In Movement, Your Privacy Choices: Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads, Name: Claudette Colvin, Birth Year: 1939, Birth date: September 5, 1939, Birth State: Alabama, Birth City: Montgomery, Birth Country: United States. (Julie Jacobson/Associated Press). Now 76 and retired, Colvin deserves her place in history. Officers were called to the scene and Colvin was forcefully taken off of the bus and . If one white person wanted to sit down there, then all the black people on that row were supposed to get up and either stand or move further to the back. Daryl Bailey, the District Attorney for the county, supported her motion, stating: "Her actions back in March of 1955 were conscientious, not criminal; inspired, not illegal; they should have led to praise and not prosecution". 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. A group of black civil rights leaders including Martin Luther King, Jr., was organized to discuss Colvin's arrest with the police commissioner. And, from there, the short distance to sanctity: they called her "Saint Rosa", "an angel walking", "a heaven-sent messenger". Instead of being taken to a juvenile detention centre, Colvin was taken to an adult jail and put in a small cell with nothing in it but a broken sink and a cot without a mattress. But Colvin was not the only casualty of this distortion. Colvin took her seat near the emergency door next to one black girl; two others sat across the aisle from her. [2] Colvin and her sister referred to the Colvins as their parents and took their last name. "She was a bookworm," says Gloria Hardin, who went to school with Colvin and who still lives in King Hill. "The news travelled fast," wrote Robinson. Parks made hers on Dec. 1 that same year. Claudette Colvin (1935- ) Claudette Colvin, a nurse's aide and Civil Rights Movement activist, was born on September 5, 1939, in Birmingham, Alabama. "She had remained calm all during the days of her waiting period and during the trial," wrote Robinson. The court declared her a ward of the state and remanded her to the custody of her family. [4] Colvin later said: "My mother told me to be quiet about what I did. "I was really afraid, because you just didn't know what white people might do at that time," Colvin later said. As well as the predictable teenage fantasy of "marrying a baseball player", she also had strong political convictions. She says she expected some abuse from the driver, but nothing more. Blake approached her. Claudette had two sons named Raymond and Randy Colvin, and her first pregnancy was at the age of 16 with a much older man. Video1894 shipwreck confirms tale of treacherous lifeboat, How 10% of Nigerian registered voters delivered victory, Sake brewers toast big rise in global sales, The Indian-American CEO who wants to be US president, Blackpink lead top stars back on the road in Asia, Exploring the rigging claims in Nigeria's elections, 'Wales is in England' gaffe sparks TikToker's trip. And, like the pregnant Mrs Hamilton, many African-Americans refused to tolerate the indignity of the South's racist laws in silence. For many years, Montgomery's black leaders did not publicize Colvin's pioneering effort. She had sons named Raymond and Randy. The boycott was very effective but the city still resisted complying with protesters' demands - an end to the policy preventing the hiring of black bus drivers and the introduction of first-come first-seated rule. She dreamed of becoming the President of the United States. Parkss protest helped spark the Montgomery bus boycott, which black leaders sought to supplement with a federal civil suit challenging the constitutionality of Montgomerys bus laws. Moreover, she was not the first person to take a stand by keeping her seat and challenging the system. They would have come and seen my parents and found me someone to marry. She shops with her workmates and watches action movies on video. "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. It is here, at 658 Dixie Drive, that Colvin, 61, was raised by a great aunt, who was a maid, and great uncle, who was a "yard boy", whom she grew up calling her parents. The policeman arrived, displaying two of the characteristics for which white Southern men had become renowned: gentility and racism. On March 2, 1955, Colvin was riding home on a city bus after school when a bus driver told her to give up her seat to a white passenger. "When ED Nixon and the Women's Political Council of Montgomery recognised that you could be that hero, you met the challenge and changed our lives forever. 83 Year Old #3. And, like Parks, the local black establishment started to rally support nationwide for her cause. ", If that were not enough, the son, Raymond, to whom she would give birth in December, emerged light-skinned: "He came out looking kind of yellow, and then I was ostracised because I wouldn't say who the father was and they thought it was a white man. "So I told him I was not going to get up either. "It's interesting that Claudette Colvin was not in the group, and rarely, if ever, rode a bus again in Montgomery," wrote Frank Sikora, an Alabama-based academic and author. Her parents were Mary Jane Gadson and C.P. 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. Unable to find work in Montgomery, Colvin moved to New York in 1958, while her son Raymond remained behind with family. This made her very scared that they would sexually assault her because this happened frequently. "Aren't you going to get up?" The death news of Colvin, which has been going on the Internet, is untrue; she is alive and is 83. Complexity, with all its nuances and shaded realities, is a messy business. "What's going on with these niggers?" He could not bring himself to chide Mrs Hamilton in her condition, but he could not allow her to stay where she was and flout the law as he understood it, either. Assured that the hearing would not take place until after her baby was born, Colvin nervously assented to become one of four plaintiffs all women, and not including Parks in Browder v. Gayle. Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter. Claudette Colvin, a civil rights pioneer who in March 1955, at the age of 15, was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a White person on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus, is seeking to get her . "I will take you off," said the policeman, then he kicked her. On March 2, 1955, she was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, at the age of 15, for refusing to give up her seat on a crowded, segregated bus to a white woman. One month later, the Supreme Court affirmed the order to Montgomery and the state of Alabama to end bus segregation. How encouraging it would be if more adults had your courage, self-respect and integrity. Parks," her former attorney, Fred Gray, told Newsweek. She told me to let Rosa be the one: white people aren't going to bother Rosa, they like her". 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. It was an exchange later credited with changing the racial landscape of America. "Y'all better make it light on yourselves and let me have those seats," he said. "I waited for about three hours until my mother arrived with my pastor to bail me out. "Well, I'm going to have you arrested," he replied. Colvin's sister, Gloria Laster, said. "She ain't got to do nothing but stay black and die," retorted a black passenger. ", Rosa Parks is a heroine to the US civil rights movement. An ad hoc committee headed by the most prominent local black activist, ED Nixon, was set up to discuss the possibility of making Colvin's arrest a test case. Betty Shabbaz, the widow of Malcolm X, was one of them. 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