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. Nobody can doubt the height of her character, nobody can doubt the depth of her Christian commitment and devotion to the teachings of Jesus." 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. Black people were allowed to occupy those seats so long as white people didn't need them. The three other girls got up; Colvin stayed put. Claudette Colvin (born September 5, 1939) is a retired American nurse aide who was a pioneer of the 1950s 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. All I could do is cry. [28] Colvin stated she was branded a troublemaker by many in her community. The policeman arrived, displaying two of the characteristics for which white Southern men had become renowned: gentility and racism. For several hours, she sat in jail, completely terrified. 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. Astrological Sign: Virgo, Article Title: Claudette Colvin Biography, Author: Biography.com Editors, Website Name: The Biography.com website, Url: https://www.biography.com/activists/claudette-colvin, Publisher: A&E; Television Networks, Last Updated: March 26, 2021, Original Published Date: April 2, 2014, I knew then and I know now that, when it comes to justice, there is no easy way to get it. 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. I knew what was happening, but I just kept trying to shut it out.". You had to take a brown paper bag and draw a diagram of your foot and take it to the store". Colvin gave birth to her first son Raymond Jun 5, 1956. Mothers expressed concern about permitting their children on the buses. "It is the second time since the Claudette Colvin case that a Negro woman has been arrested for the same thing.". Montgomery was not home to the first bus boycott any more than Colvin was the first person to challenge segregation. It is this that incenses Patton. "So I told him I was not going to get up, either. "I told Mrs Parks, as I had told other leaders in Montgomery, that I thought the Claudette Colvin arrest was a good test case to end segregation on the buses," says Fred Gray, Parks's lawyer. I heard about the court decision on the news, Colvin recalled. "He wanted me to give up my seat for a white person and I would have done it for an elderly person but this was a young white woman. 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. Two police officers arrived and pulled her from her seat. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page. "She lived in a little shack. The driver looked at the women in his mirror. 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. She says she expected some abuse from the driver, but nothing more. "We had unpaved streets and outside toilets. He was born on March 3, 1931, in Mound City, S.D., the son of Alfred Gunderson and Verna Johnson Gunderson. Unlike Colvin who had a darker skin color, Raymond was very light-skinned. Read about our approach to external linking. In the 2010s, Larkin arranged for a street to be named after Colvin. Colvin took her seat near the emergency door next to one black girl; two others sat across the aisle from her. "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. "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. Born in Alabama #33. [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. She resisted bus segregation nine months before Rosa Parks, . Unable to find work in Montgomery, Colvin moved to New York in 1958, while her son Raymond remained behind with family. ", 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. Fifty years have passed since campaigners overturned a ban on ethnic minorities working on buses in one British city. He was . . They forced her into the back of a squad car, one officer jumping in after her. 05 September 1939 - Court trial. Phillip Hoose also wrote about her in the young adult biography Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice. [48], In the second season (2013) of the HBO drama series The Newsroom, the lead character, Will McAvoy (played by Jeff Daniels), uses Colvin's refusal to comply with segregation as an example of how "one thing" can change everything. It reads: "The wonderful thing which you have just done makes me feel like a craven coward. Performance & security by Cloudflare. "It is he who decides which facts to give the floor and in what order or context. "I thought he would stop and shout and then drive on. "[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. Reeves was a teenage grocery delivery boy who was found having sex with a white woman. Claudette Colvin was born Claudette Austin in Montgomery, Alabama, on September 5, 1939, to Mary Jane Gadson and C. P. Austin. The decision in the 1956 case, which had been filed by Fred Gray and Charles D. Langford on behalf of the aforementioned African American women, ruled that Montgomery's segregated bus system was unconstitutional. "I had almost a life history of being rebellious against being mistreated against my colour," she said. One month later, the Supreme Court affirmed the order to Montgomery and the state of Alabama to end bus segregation. "When I was in the ninth grade, all the police cars came to get Jeremiah," says Colvin. "[35], I dont think theres room for many more icons. "The news travelled fast," wrote Robinson. Like Parks, she, too, pleaded not guilty to breaking the law. Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR). The court, however, ruled against her and put her on probation. [20] In a later interview, she said: "We couldn't try on clothes. When the white seats were filled, the driver, J Fred Black, asked Parks and three others to give up their seats. In this lesson, students will learn about Claudette Colvin, a 15-year-old who stood up for equal rights in 1955. Colvin went to her job instead. "Mrs Parks was a married woman," said ED Nixon. The case, organized and filed in federal court by civil rights attorney Fred Gray, challenged city bus segregation in Montgomery as unconstitutional. 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. Letters of support came from as far afield as Oregon and California. ", "They never thought much of us, so there was no way they were going to run with us," says Hardin. "They lectured us about Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth and we were taught about an opera singer called Marian Anderson who wasn't allowed to sing at Constitutional Hall just because she was black, so she sang at Lincoln Memorial instead.". [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. To the exclusively male and predominantly middle-class, church-dominated, local black leadership in Montgomery, she was a fallen woman. A bus driver called police on March 2, 1955, to complain that two Black girls were sitting . "Whenever people ask me: 'Why didn't you get up when the bus driver asked you?' Today their boycott, modelled on the one in Montgomery, is largely forgotten - but it was a milestone in achieving equality. "[citation needed], The police officers who took her to the station made sexual comments about her body and took turns guessing her bra size throughout the ride. They would have come and seen my parents and found me someone to marry. Colvin was a member of the NAACP Youth Council and had been learning about the civil rights movement in school. Men instructed their wives to walk or to share rides in neighbour's autos.". "So I told him I was not going to get up either. So we choose the facts to fit the narrative we want to hear. 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. [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. Raymond Colvin, age 62, a resident of Ft. Deposit, AL, died April 13, 2013. But Colvin was not the only casualty of this distortion. In the south, male ministers made up the overwhelming majority of leaders. He remarks that if the ACLU had used her act of civil disobedience, rather than that of Rosa Parks' eight months later, to highlight the injustice of segregation, a young preacher named Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. may never have attracted national attention, and America probably would not have had his voice for the Civil Rights Movement. Sikora telephoned a startled Colvin and wrote an article about her. Claudette Colvin is a civil rights activist of African descent. She retired in 2004. Colvin later moved to New York City and worked as a nurse's aide. During her pregnancy, she was abandoned by civil rights leaders. [39] Later, Rev. Colvin was a kid. 1956- Colvin was one of four Black women who served as plaintiffs in a federal court suit 1956- Had her child, his name was Raymond 1957- People were bombing black churches 1957- Congress approved the Civil Rights Act of 1957 Colvins son Raymond died in 1993. 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 . 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. After Colvin was released from prison, there were fears that her home would be attacked. 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. Jeanetta Reese later resigned from the case. On June 13, 1956, the judges determined that the state and local laws requiring bus segregation in Alabama were unconstitutional. Most Popular #5576. 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 was glued to my seat. Colvin is not exactly bitter. "I was scared and it was really, really frightening, it was like those Western movies where they put the bandit in the jail cell and you could hear the keys. She is a civil rights activist from the 1950s and a retired nurse aide. Colvin says Parks had the right image to become the face of resistance to segregation because of her previous work with the NAACP. ", Montgomery's black establishment leaders decided they would have to wait for the right person. "[4][5] Colvin's case was dropped by civil rights campaigners because Colvin was unmarried and pregnant during the proceedings. 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. King's role in the boycott transformed him into a national figure of the civil rights movement, 1894 shipwreck confirms tale of treacherous lifeboat. Colvin was born on September 5, 1939, in Montgomery, Alabama. The three black passengers sitting alongside Parks rose reluctantly. Claudette Colvin and her guardians relocated to Montgomery when . After her minister paid her bail, she went home where she and her family stayed up all night out of concern for possible retaliation. They remember her as a confident, studious, young girl with a streak that was rebellious without being boisterous. But go to King Hill and mention her name, and the first thing they will tell you is that she was the first. While this does not happen by conspiracy, it is often facilitated by collusion. This much we know. Colvin could not attend the proclamation due to health concerns. In high school, she had high ambitions of political activity. The urban bustle surrounding her could not seem further away from King Hill. By the time she got home, her parents already knew. As well as the predictable teenage fantasy of "marrying a baseball player", she also had strong political convictions. He was executed for his alleged crimes. Let the people know Rosa Parks was the right person for the boycott. The woman alleged rape; Reeves insisted it was consensual. [30] Claudette began a job in 1969 as a nurse's aide in a nursing home in Manhattan. 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. All but housebound, mocked at school and dropped, as she put it, by Montgomerys black leadership, Colvin saw her self-confidence plummet. But she rarely told her story after moving to New York City. Tour: Black America and the burden of the perfect victim. "Oh God," wailed one black woman at the back. For all her bravado, Colvin was shocked by the extremity of what happened next. Rembert said, "I know people have heard her name before, but I just thought we should have a day to celebrate her." She was 15. James Edward "Jungle Jim" Colvin, 69, of Juliette, Georgia, passed away on Saturday, February 25, 2023. 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. The Supreme Court summarily affirmed the District Court decision on November 13, 1956. Colvin never married but gave birth to two sons, the first was Raymond Colvin (b. December 1955, died 1993). On June 5, 1956, the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama issued a ruling declaring the state of Alabama and Montgomery's laws mandating public bus segregation as unconstitutional. She shops with her workmates and watches action movies on video. "Claudette gave all of us moral courage. Yet months before her arrest on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, a 15-year-old girl was charged with the same 'crime'. After training, she landed a job as a nurses aide in a Catholic hospital in Manhattan. 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. "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. Members of the community acted as lookouts, while Colvin's father sat up all night with a shotgun, in case the Ku Klux Klan turned up. 1939- Claudette was born in Birmingham 1951- 22nd Amendment was put into place, limiting the presidential term of office . Although some of the details might seem familiar, this is not the Rosa Parks story. She also had become pregnant and they thought an unwed mother would attract too much negative attention in a public legal battle. ", 'Facts speak only when the historian calls on them," wrote the historian EH Carr in his landmark work, What Is History? .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 has literally become a footnote in history. She was born on September 5, 1939. "He asked us both to get up. The driver caught a glimpse of them through his mirror. People often make death hoaxes of well-known personalities to get public attention and views. 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. 2023 BBC. A sanitation worker, Mr Harris, got up, gave her his seat and got off the bus. The majority of customers on the bus system were African American, but they were discriminated against by its custom of segregated seating. ", "I wanted to go north and liberate my people," explains Colvin. She still has one - a handwritten note from William Harris in Sacramento. She decided on that day that she wasn't going to move. The leaders in the Civil Rights Movement tried to keep up appearances and make the "most appealing" protesters the most seen. 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. In this respect, the civil rights movement in Montgomery moved fast. Colvin left Montgomery for New York City in 1958,[6] because she had difficulty finding and keeping work following her participation in the federal court case that overturned bus segregation. Similarly, Rosa Parks left Montgomery for Detroit in 1957. "I didn't know if they were crazy, if they were going to take me to a Klan meeting. [37], "All we want is the truth, why does history fail to get it right?" A memorial service will be held at 11:00 AM, Saturday, March 4, 2023, at East Juliette . "If any of you are not gentlemen enough to give a lady a seat, you should be put in jail yourself," he said. When Colvin's case was appealed to the Montgomery Circuit Court on May 6, 1955, the charges of disturbing the peace and violating the segregation laws were dropped, although her conviction for assaulting a police officer was upheld. She was forcibly removed from the bus and arrested by the two policemen, Thomas J. ", They took her to City Hall, where she was charged with misconduct, resisting arrest and violating the city segregation laws. "Move y'all, I want those two seats," he yelled. All Rights Reserved. This made her very scared that they would sexually assault her because this happened frequently. 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. [47], A re-enactment of Colvin's resistance is portrayed in a 2014 episode of the comedy TV series Drunk History about Montgomery, Alabama. Cloudflare Ray ID: 7a1897c67fea0e3a Though he didn't say it, nobody was going to say that about the then heavily pregnant Colvin. Her timing was superb. In New York, Colvin gave birth to another son, Randy. It was a journey not only into history but also mythology. It is a letter Colvin knew nothing about. Three of the students had got up reluctantly and I remained sitting next to the window," she says. But there were two things about Colvin's stand on that March day that made it significant. For months, Montgomerys NAACP chapter had been looking for a court case to test the constitutionality of the bus laws. [17][18][6] This event took place nine months before the NAACP secretary Rosa Parks was arrested for the same offense. I think that history only has room enough for certainyou know, how many icons can you choose? [6][7] It is now widely accepted that Colvin was not accredited by civil rights campaigners at the time due to her circumstances. "Never. ", Almost 50 years on, Colvin still talks about the incident with a mixture of shock and indignation - as though she still cannot believe that this could have happened to her. "But when she was found guilty, her agonised sobs penetrated the atmosphere of the courthouse. She was played by Mariah Iman Wilson. By then I didnt have much time for celebrating anyway. In a United States district court, she testified before the three-judge panel that heard the case. She prayed furiously as they sped out, with the cop leering over her, guessing at her bra size. The problem arose because all the seats on the bus were taken. Parks made hers on Dec. 1 that same year. Claudette Colvin was an African American civil rights activist who pioneered the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s. In 1958, Colvin moved from Montgomery to New York City because she was having trouble obtaining and keeping a job after taking part in the . "I went bipolar. Phillip Hoose. "I will take you off," said the policeman, then he kicked her. Martin Luther King Jr., had been seeking to stir the outrage of African Americans and sympathetic whites into civic action. I paid my fare, it's my constitutional right." Claudette Colvin (born Claudette Austin; September 5, 1939) [1] [2] is an American pioneer of the 1950s civil rights movement and retired nurse aide. A second son, Randy, born in 1960, gave her four grandchildren, who are all deeply proud of their grandmothers heroism. We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back. Claudette Colvin (born Claudette Austin; September 5, 1939)[1][2] is an American pioneer of the 1950s civil rights movement and retired nurse aide. But, as she recalls her teenage years after the arrest and the pregnancy, she hovers between resentment, sadness and bewilderment at the way she was treated. Mayor Todd Strange presented the proclamation and, when speaking of Colvin, said, "She was an early foot soldier in our civil rights, and we did not want this opportunity to go by without declaring March 2 as Claudette Colvin Day to thank her for her leadership in the modern day civil rights movement." 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