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. [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. 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. "The white people were always seated at the front of the bus and the black people were seated at the back of the bus. 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. He was drug-addicted and alcoholic and passed away of a cardiac attack in Colvin's apartment. But go to King Hill and mention her name, and the first thing they will tell you is that she was the first. ", Nonetheless, the shock waves of her defiance had reverberated throughout Montgomery and beyond. Parks was, too. She fell out of history altogether. How encouraging it would be if more adults had your courage, self-respect and integrity. [47], A re-enactment of Colvin's resistance is portrayed in a 2014 episode of the comedy TV series Drunk History about Montgomery, Alabama. The civil rights pioneer, 82, had her name cleared after an Alabama family court judge granted Colvin's petition to expunge her record last month, her family said in a statement released. "When I told my mother I was pregnant, I thought she was going to have a heart attack. 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. "I respect my elders, but I don't respect what they did to Colvin," she says. [44], Former US Poet Laureate Rita Dove memorialized Colvin in her poem "Claudette Colvin Goes To Work",[45] published in her 1999 book On the Bus with Rosa Parks; folk singer John McCutcheon turned this poem into a song, which was first publicly performed in Charlottesville, Virginia's Paramount Theater in 2006. ", A personal tragedy for her was seen as a political liability by the town's civil rights leaders. The bus froze. A group of black civil rights leaders including Martin Luther King, Jr., was organized to discuss Colvin's arrest with the police commissioner. Colvin says Parks had the right image to become the face of resistance to segregation because of her previous work with the NAACP. They never came and discussed it with my parents. So he said, 'If you are not going to get up, I will get a policeman. ", Rosa Parks is a heroine to the US civil rights movement. Ms. Colvin made her stand on March 2, 1955, and Mrs. [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. For we like our history neat - an easy-to-follow, self-contained narrative with dates, characters and landmarks with which we can weave together otherwise unrelated events into one apparently seamless length of fabric held together by sequence and consequence. Colvin went to her job instead. As civil rights attorney Fred Gray put it, Claudette gave all of us moral courage. "Whenever people ask me: 'Why didn't you get up when the bus driver asked you?' "For nobody can doubt the boundless outreach of her integrity. None of them spoke to me; they didn't see if I was okay. Colvin later moved to New York City and worked as a nurse's aide. Martin Luther King Jr., had been seeking to stir the outrage of African Americans and sympathetic whites into civic action. Unable to find work in Montgomery, Colvin moved to New York in 1958, while her son Raymond remained behind with family. But it is also a rare and excellent one that gives her more than a passing, dismissive mention. "The light-skinned girls always thought they were better looking," says Colvin. [24], Colvin's moment of activism was not solitary or random. "I wasn't frightened but disappointed and angry because I knew I was sitting in the right seat.". Her son, Raymond, was born in March 1956. Another factor was that before long Colvin became pregnant. "[37], In 2000, Troy State University opened a Rosa Parks Museum in Montgomery to honor the town's place in civil rights history. 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. After her refusal to give up her seat, Colvin was arrested on several charges, including violating the city's segregation laws. So he turned on the black men sitting behind her. Claudette Colvin, 81, was a true pioneer in the Civil Rights Movement. 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. 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. But there were two things about Colvin's stand on that March day that made it significant. But, unlike Parks, Colvin never made it into the civil rights hall of fame. The discussions in the black community began to focus on black enterprise rather than integration, although national civil rights legislation did not pass until 1964 and 1965. 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 After her arrest and late appearance in the court hearing, she was more or less forgotten. Cloudflare Ray ID: 7a1897c67fea0e3a It wasn't a bad area, but it had a reputation." You can't sugarcoat it. The driver kept on going but stopped when he reached a junction where a police squad car was waiting. 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 the first person arrested by the police in Montgomery, AL for refusing to give up her bus seat. Reverend Ralph Abernathy, who played a key role as King's right-hand man throughout the civil rights years, referred to her as a "tool" of the movement. Joseph Rembert said, "If nobody did anything for Claudette Colvin in the past why don't we do something for her right now?" 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 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. Born on September 5 #12. The churches, buses and schools were all segregated and you couldn't even go into the same restaurants," Claudette Colvin says. Claudette Colvin gave birth to a son named Raymond in the same year 1955. That's what they usually did.". ", But even as she inspired awe throughout the country, elders within Montgomery's black community began to doubt her suitability as a standard-bearer of the movement. She told me to let Rosa be the one: white people aren't going to bother Rosa, they like her". Two police officers arrived and pulled her from her seat. The other three moved, but another black woman, Ruth Hamilton, who was pregnant, got on and sat next to Colvin. Raymond Colvin died in 1993 in New York of a heart attack at age 37. Men instructed their wives to walk or to share rides in neighbour's autos.". "They said they didn't want to use a pregnant teenager because it would be controversial and the people would talk about the pregnancy more than the boycott," Colvin says. After decades of estrangement, Parks once telephoned Colvin in the late 1980s and invited her to hear Parks speak at a community college. And, from there, the short distance to sanctity: they called her "Saint Rosa", "an angel walking", "a heaven-sent messenger". "Aren't you going to get up?" Raymond D. Gunderson, age 91, of Hot Springs, passed away Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2023. However, not one has bothered to interview her. [2] Price testified for Colvin, who was tried in juvenile court. Respectfully and faithfully yours. A second son, Randy, born in 1960, gave her four grandchildren, who are all deeply proud of their grandmothers heroism. Nor was Colvin the last to be passed over. 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 . She needed support. [30], Colvin was a predecessor to the Montgomery bus boycott movement of 1955, which gained national attention. Then, they will reflect on a time when they took a stand on an important issue. Claudette Colvin was born on September 5, 1939, in Montgomery, Alabama. Best Known For: Claudette Colvin is an activist who was a pioneer in the civil rights movement in Alabama during the 1950s. "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. Parks became one of Time Magazine's 100 most important people of the 20th century . Video, 1894 shipwreck confirms tale of treacherous lifeboat, Claudette Colvin's interview on Outlook on the BBC World Service, Whiskey fungus forces Jack Daniels to stop construction, Harry and Meghan told to 'vacate' Frogmore Cottage, Rare Jurassic-era bug found at Arkansas Walmart, Havana Syndrome unlikely to have hostile cause - US, India PM Modi urges G20 to overcome divisions, Starbucks illegally fired workers over union - judge, NFL hopeful accused of racing in deadly car crash. "I was more defiant and then they knocked my books out of my lap and one of them grabbed my arm. New York, Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, This page was last edited on 1 March 2023, at 23:25. She relied on the city's buses to get to and from school because her family did not own a car. Black people were allowed to occupy those seats so long as white people didn't need them. "I had almost a life history of being rebellious against being mistreated against my colour," she said. [50], In 2022, a biopic of Colvin titled Spark written by Niceole R. Levy and directed by Anthony Mackie was announced. The three other girls got up; Colvin stayed put. They would have come and seen my parents and found me someone to marry. The young Ms. Colvin was portrayed by actress Mariah Iman Wilson. Nixon referred to her as a "lovely, stupid woman"; ministers would greet her at church functions, with irony, "Well, if it isn't the superstar." Claudette Colvin became a teenage mother in 1956 when she gave birth to a boy named Raymond. I was glued to my seat. "[33] "I'm not disappointed. [2][14] Despite being a good student, Colvin had difficulty connecting with her peers in school due to grief. 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. The full enormity of what she had done was only just beginning to dawn on her. Councilman Larkin's sister was on the bus in 1955 when Colvin was arrested. She said she felt as if she was "getting [her] Christmas in January rather than the 25th. She earned mostly As in her classes and aspired to become president one day. Funeral Services will be held Saturday, April 20, 2013 at 11:00 a.m. at the Ft. Deposit Municipal Complex with Pastor. 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. A poor, single, pregnant, black, teenage mother who had both taken on the white establishment and fallen foul of the black one. Blake approached her. Those who are aware of these distortions in the civil rights story are few. "Middle-class blacks looked down on King Hill," says Colvin today. Parks stayed put. Everybody knew. ", 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. She was 15. Performance & security by Cloudflare. "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. She had sons named Raymond and Randy. And I just kept blabbing things out, and I never stopped. Claudette Colvin was an African American civil rights activist who pioneered the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s. "If any of you are not gentlemen enough to give a lady a seat, you should be put in jail yourself," he said. I felt like Sojourner Truth was pushing down on one shoulder and Harriet Tubman was pushing down on the othersaying, 'Sit down girl!' History had me glued to the seat.. [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. While this does not happen by conspiracy, it is often facilitated by collusion. Read about our approach to external linking. In New York, Colvin gave birth to another son, Randy. ", The upshot was that Colvin was left in an incredibly vulnerable position. . In a United States district court, she testified before the three-judge panel that heard the case. 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. But she rarely told her story after moving to New York City. While her role in the fight to end segregation in Montgomery may not be widely recognized, Colvin helped advance civil rights efforts in the city. The court declared her a ward of the state and remanded her to the custody of her family. "I thought he would stop and shout and then drive on. ", 'Facts speak only when the historian calls on them," wrote the historian EH Carr in his landmark work, What Is History? And, like Parks, the local black establishment started to rally support nationwide for her cause. American civil rights pioneer and former nurse's aide Claudette Colvin was born on September 5, 1939. image credit; BBC. The Montgomery bus boycott was then called off after a few months. Like Parks, she, too, pleaded not guilty to breaking the law. asked the policeman. Going to a segregated school had one advantage, she found - her teachers gave her a good grounding in black history. Her first son died in 1993. In this small, elevated patch of town, black people sit out on wooden porches and watch an impoverished world go by. I was afraid they might rape me. That meant most of the dark complexion ones didn't like themselves. The problem arose because all the seats on the bus were taken. But while the driver went to get a policeman, it was the white students who started to make noise. In 1955, at age 15, Claudette Colvin . 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. As an adult, she worked as a nurse's assistant in New . She worked there for 35 years until her . 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.". However, some white passengers still refused to sit near a black person. Similarly, Rosa Parks left Montgomery for Detroit in 1957. 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. A second son, Randy, born in 1960, gave her four grandchildren, who are all deeply proud of their grandmother's heroism. [15], In 1955, Colvin was a student at the segregated Booker T. Washington High School in the city. 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. Colvin was not invited officially for the formal dedication of the museum, which opened to the public in September 2016. Virgo Civil Rights Leader #2. But Colvin told the driver she had paid her fare and that it was her constitutional right to remain where she was. 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. This movement took place in the United States. Colvin was born on September 5, 1939, in Montgomery, Alabama. "In a few hours, every Negro youngster on the streets discussed Colvin's arrest. Claudette Colvin Popularity . 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. 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. March 2 was named Claudette Colvin Day in Montgomery. "For a while, there was a real distance between me and Mrs Parks over this. ", "If the white press got ahold of that information, they would have [had] a field day," said Rosa Parks. [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. Clubs called special meetings and discussed the event with some degree of alarm. I heard about the court decision on the news, Colvin recalled. 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