This led to a few articles and profiles by others in subsequent years. Martin Luther King Jr., had been seeking to stir the outrage of African Americans and sympathetic whites into civic action. She concentrated her mind on things she had been learning at school. In March 1955, nine months before Rosa Parks defied segregation laws by refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin did exactly the same thing. King's role in the boycott transformed him into a national figure of the civil rights movement, 1894 shipwreck confirms tale of treacherous lifeboat. One white woman defended Colvin to the police; another said that, if she got away with this, "they will take over". But go to King Hill and mention her name, and the first thing they will tell you is that she was the first. A group of black civil rights leaders including Martin Luther King, Jr., was organized to discuss Colvin's arrest with the police commissioner. In 1955, at age 15, Claudette Colvin . The majority of customers on the bus system were African American, but they were discriminated against by its custom of segregated seating. That meant most of the dark complexion ones didn't like themselves. Colvin gave birth to Raymond, a son. 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. Claudette had two sons named Raymond and Randy Colvin, and her first pregnancy was at the age of 16 with a much older man. In this small, elevated patch of town, black people sit out on wooden porches and watch an impoverished world go by. "[28], On May 20, 2018, Congressman Joe Crowley honored Colvin for her lifetime commitment to public service with a Congressional Certificate and an American flag. Colvin says that after Supreme Court made its decision, things slowly began to change. First, it came less than a year after the US supreme court had outlawed the "separate but equal" policy that had provided the legal basis for racial segregation - what had been custom and practice in the South for generations was now against federal law and could be challenged in the courts. asked the policeman. Similarly, Rosa Parks left Montgomery for Detroit in 1957. She gave birth to a fair-skin child named Raymond in the year 1956 whose skin tone was similar to her partner. "I thought he would stop and shout and then drive on. Parks's arrest sparked a chain reaction that started the bus boycott that launched the civil rights movement that transformed the apartheid of America's southern states from a local idiosyncrasy to an international scandal. I was crying," she says. Nor was Colvin the last to be passed over. Rita Dove penned the poem "Claudette Colvin Goes to Work," which later became a song. 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. If she had not done what she did, I am not sure that we would have been able to mount the support for Mrs. She fell out of history altogether. When the trial was held, Colvin pleaded innocent but was found guilty and released on indefinite probation in her parents' care. During her pregnancy, she was abandoned by civil rights leaders. 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. 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. Nobody can doubt the height of her character, nobody can doubt the depth of her Christian commitment and devotion to the teachings of Jesus." The driver caught a glimpse of them through his mirror. They just didn't want to know me. [5] Colvin did not receive the same attention as Parks for a number of reasons: she did not have "good hair", she was not fair-skinned, she was a teenager, she was pregnant. Broken-down cars sit outside tumble-down houses. In 1955, when she was 15, she refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus to a white womannine months before Rosa Parks's refusal in Montgomery sparked a bus boycott. Parks stayed put. It is time for President Obama to award Colvin the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nations highest civilian honor, to recognize her sacrifice and passionate dedication to social justice. She worked there for 35 years until her . This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. On March 2, 1955, she was arrested at the age of 15 in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her seat to a white woman on a crowded, segregated bus. Councilman Larkin's sister was on the bus in 1955 when Colvin was arrested. I probably would've examined a dozen more before I got there if Rosa Parks hadn't come along before I found the right one. "I was really afraid, because you just didn't know what white people might do at that time," Colvin later said. [2][13] Not long after, in September 1952, Colvin started attending Booker T. Washington High School. "She had been tracked down by the zeitgeist - the spirit of the times." That's what they usually did.". [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. This much we know. Then, they will reflect on a time when they took a stand on an important issue. Austin, but she was raised by her great-aunt and great-uncle, Mary Ann and Q.P. Her first son died in 1993. [23] She was bailed out by her minister, who told her that she had brought the revolution to Montgomery. ", When the boycott was over and the African-American community had emerged victorious, King, Nixon and Parks appeared for the cameras. In this respect, the civil rights movement in Montgomery moved fast. The case went to the United States Supreme Court on appeal by the state, and it upheld the district court's ruling on November 13, 1956. Claudette Colvin was an African American civil rights activist who pioneered the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s. "New York is a completely different culture to Montgomery, Alabama. Two policemen boarded the bus and asked Colvin why she wouldn't give up her seat. I started protecting my crotch. When a white woman who got on the bus was left standing in the front, the bus driver, Robert W. Cleere, commanded Colvin and three other black women in her row to move to the back. Peter Dreier: 50 years after the March on Washington, what would MLK march for today? The court, however, ruled against her and put her on probation. In March 1955, nine months before Rosa Parks defied segregation laws by refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, 15-year-old Claudette . Like Colvin, Parks refused, and was arrested and fined. 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.'". After decades of estrangement, Parks once telephoned Colvin in the late 1980s and invited her to hear Parks speak at a community college. As well as the predictable teenage fantasy of "marrying a baseball player", she also had strong political convictions. However, not one has bothered to interview her. She deserves our attention, our gratitude and a warm, bright spotlight all her own. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. One incident in particular preoccupied her at the time - the plight of her schoolmate, Jeremiah Reeves. 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. It is a rare, and poor, civil rights book that covers the Montgomery bus boycott and does not mention Claudette Colvin. "She ain't got to do nothing but stay black and die," retorted a black passenger. "They did think I was nutty and crazy.". All Rights Reserved. Colvin was born on September 5, 1939, in Montgomery, Alabama. She still has one - a handwritten note from William Harris in Sacramento. For Colvin, the entire episode was traumatic: "Nowadays, you'd call it statutory rape, but back then it was just the kind of thing that happened," she says, describing the conditions under which she conceived. "There was segregation everywhere. A sanitation worker, Mr Harris, got up, gave her his seat and got off the bus. "She was a bookworm," says Gloria Hardin, who went to school with Colvin and who still lives in King Hill. Respectfully and faithfully yours. She is a civil rights activist from the 1950s and a retired nurse aide. But Colvin told the driver she had paid her fare and that it was her constitutional right to remain where she was. Somehow, as Mrs. ", The upshot was that Colvin was left in an incredibly vulnerable position. Colvin says Parks had the right image to become the face of resistance to segregation because of her previous work with the NAACP. "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. "Y'all better make it light on yourselves and let me have those seats," he said. Fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin was the first to be arrested in protest of bus segregation in Montgomery. When Ms Nesbitt, her 10th grade teacher, asked the class to write down what they wanted to be, she unfolded a piece of paper with Colvin's handwriting on it that said: "President of the United States. Going to a segregated school had one advantage, she found - her teachers gave her a good grounding in black history. The Montgomery bus boycott was then called off after a few months. She sat down in the front of the bus and refused to move on her own will when asked. It was not your tired feet, but your strength of character and resolve that inspired us." CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST, 81, BIRMINGHAM, AL. ", Not so Colvin. I was sitting on the last seat that they said you could sit in. She was detained on March 2, 1955, in . It was this dark, clever, angry young woman who boarded the Highland Avenue bus on Friday, March 2, 1955, opposite Martin Luther King's church on Dexter Avenue, Montgomery. "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. "I will take you off," said the policeman, then he kicked her. She was 15. At 82, her arrest is expunged", "Claudette Colvin's juvenile record has been expunged, 66 years after she was arrested for refusing to give her bus seat to a White person", "John McCutcheon sings Rita Dove's 'Claudette Colvin', Drunk History' Montgomery, AL (TV Episode 2014), "The Newsroom - Will McAvoy On Historical Hypotheticals", "Report: Biopic about civil rights pioneer Claudette Colvin in the works", The Other Rosa Parks (Colvin interview with, Vanessa de la Torre, "In The Shadow of Rosa Parks: 'Unsung Hero' of Civil Rights Movement Speaks Out", "An asterisk, not a star, of black history", Let us Look at Jim Crow for the Criminal he is - Rosa Parks' bus stand and the long history of bus resistance, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Claudette_Colvin&oldid=1142354716. However, some white passengers still refused to sit near a black person. But the very spirit and independence of mind that had inspired Parks to challenge segregation started to pose a threat to Montgomery's black male hierarchy, which had started to believe, and then resent, their own spin. From "high-yellas" to "coal-coloureds", it is a tension steeped not only in language but in the arts, from Harlem Renaissance novelist Nella Larsen's book, Passing, to Spike Lee's film, School Daze. The Supreme Court summarily affirmed the District Court decision on November 13, 1956. Colvin was a kid. Telephones rang. 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". It was going to be a long night on Dixie Drive. She was born on September 5, 1939. It was an exchange later credited with changing the racial landscape of America. Under the twisted logic of segregation the white woman still couldn't sit down, as then white and black passengers would have been sharing a row of seats - and the whole point was that white passengers were meant to be closer to the front. They never came and discussed it with my parents. She worked there for 35 years, retiring in 2004. You had to take a brown paper bag and draw a diagram of your foot and take it to the store". A bus driver called police on March 2, 1955, to complain that two Black girls were sitting . 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. "You got to get up," they shouted. Claudette Colvin, 1953 Claudette Austin was born in Birmingham, Jefferson County, to Mary Jane Gadson and C. P. Austin on September 5, 1939.Her father abandoned the family, which included a sister, when she was a small child, and the two girls went to live in Pine Level, Montgomery County, with an aunt and uncle, Mary Anne and Q. P. Colvin.Both children took the Colvin name as their last name . The action you just performed triggered the security solution. The urban bustle surrounding her could not seem further away from King Hill. By then I didnt have much time for celebrating anyway. I knew what was happening, but I just kept trying to shut it out.". Aster is known as a talisman of love and an enduring symbol of elegance. Unable to find work in Montgomery, Colvin moved to New York in 1958, while her son Raymond remained behind with family. In the nine months between her arrest and that of Parks, another young black woman, Mary Louise Smith, suffered a similar fate. Colvin left Montgomery for New York in 1958, because she had difficulty finding and keeping work after the notoriety of the . [29], Colvin gave birth to a son, Raymond, in March 1956. [4][18] Colvin said, "But I made a personal statement, too, one that [Parks] didn't make and probably couldn't have made. In high school, she had high ambitions of political activity. ", To complicate matters, a pregnant black woman, Mrs Hamilton, got on and sat next to Colvin. They had threatened to throw her out of the Booker T Washington school for wearing her hair in plaits. Sapphire was once thought to guard against evil and poisoning. "Always studying and using long words.". In 1955, nine months before Rosa Parks' famous act of defiance, Claudette Colvin, a Black high school student in Montgomery, Alabama, was arrested after refusing to give up her seat on a public . asked one. For months, Montgomerys NAACP chapter had been looking for a court case to test the constitutionality of the bus laws. Parks became one of Time Magazine's 100 most important people of the 20th century . 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. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data. Four years later, they executed him. As an adult, she worked as a nurse's assistant in New . Two police officers arrived and pulled her from her seat. [16], Through the trial Colvin was represented by Fred Gray, a lawyer for the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), which was organizing civil rights actions. In a United States district court, she testified before the three-judge panel that heard the case. Tour: Black America and the burden of the perfect victim. "It bothered some that there was an unruly, tomboy quality to Colvin, including a propensity for curse words and immature outbursts," writes Douglas Brinkly, who recently completed a biography of Parks. [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. "So I told him I was not going to get up either. In July 2014, Claudette Colvin's story was documented in a television episode of Drunk History (Montgomery, AL (Season 2, Episode 1)). The bus went three stops before several white passengers got on. Let the people know Rosa Parks was the right person for the boycott. Two years earlier, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, African-Americans launched an effective bus boycott after drivers refused to honour an integrated seating policy, which was settled in an unsatisfactory fudge. ", Montgomery's black establishment leaders decided they would have to wait for the right person. 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. Today, she sits in a diner in the Bronx, her pudding-basin haircut framing a soft face with a distant smile. Claudette Colvin (born Claudette Austin; September 5, 1939)[1][2] is an American pioneer of the 1950s civil rights movement and retired nurse aide. Claudette Colvin : biography. "I felt like Sojourner Truth was pushing down on one shoulder and Harriet Tubman was pushing down on the othersaying, 'Sit down girl!' Performance & security by Cloudflare. Two years later, Colvin moved to New York City, where she had her second son, Randy, and worked as a nurse's aide at a Manhattan nursing home. She dreamed of becoming the President of the United States. [39] Later, Rev. Three of the students had got up reluctantly and I remained sitting next to the window," she says. At the time, black leaders, including the Rev. After her arrest and release to the custody of her pastor and great-aunt, the bright, opinionated Colvin insisted to everyone within earshot that she wanted to contest the charges. One month later, the Supreme Court declined to reconsider, and on December 20, 1956, the court ordered Montgomery and the state of Alabama to end bus segregation permanently. It was her individual courage that triggered the collective display of defiance that turned a previously unknown 26-year-old preacher, Martin Luther King, into a household name. They forced her into the back of a squad car, one officer jumping in after her. She was convicted on all charges, appealed and lost again. State and local officials appealed the case to the United States Supreme Court. "If any of you are not gentlemen enough to give a lady a seat, you should be put in jail yourself," he said. But she rarely told her story after moving to New York City. And, like Parks, the local black establishment started to rally support nationwide for her cause. I was afraid they might rape me. I felt like Sojourner Truth was pushing down on one shoulder and Harriet Tubman was pushing down on the othersaying, 'Sit down girl!' [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". She shops with her workmates and watches action movies on video. Later, she would tell a reporter that she would sometimes attend the rallies at the churches. The problem arose because all the seats on the bus were taken. That was worse than stealing, you know, talking back to a white person. Nonetheless, Raymond died at the age of 37, reported Core Online. Read about our approach to external linking. Joseph Rembert said, "If nobody did anything for Claudette Colvin in the past why don't we do something for her right now?" "I respect my elders, but I don't respect what they did to Colvin," she says. Another factor was that before long Colvin became pregnant. Rosa Parks stated: "If the white press got ahold of that information, they would have [had] a field day. Second, she was the first person, in Montgomery at least, to take up the challenge. Claudette Colvin was an American civil rights activist during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. Two more kicks soon followed. Click to reveal [2] Colvin and her sister referred to the Colvins as their parents and took their last name. "Move y'all, I want those two seats," he yelled. .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. She withdrew from college, and struggled in the local environment. The other three moved, but another black woman, Ruth Hamilton, who was pregnant, got on and sat next to Colvin. She told me to let Rosa be the one: white people aren't going to bother Rosa, they like her". I didn't want to discuss it with them," she says. 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