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. 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. However, some white passengers still refused to sit near a black person. Rita Dove penned the poem "Claudette Colvin Goes to Work," which later became a song. 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. Claudette Colvin and her guardians relocated to Montgomery when . The policeman grabbed her and took her to a patrolman's car in which his colleagues were waiting. 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 had two sons named Raymond and Randy Colvin, and her first pregnancy was at the age of 16 with a much older man. As well as the predictable teenage fantasy of "marrying a baseball player", she also had strong political convictions. [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. 2023 BBC. He was drug-addicted and alcoholic and passed away of a cardiac attack in Colvin's apartment. "When I told my mother I was pregnant, I thought she was going to have a heart attack. "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. [6][7] It is now widely accepted that Colvin was not accredited by civil rights campaigners at the time due to her circumstances. ", Not so Colvin. Gary Younge investigates, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. 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 . So he said, 'If you are not going to get up, I will get a policeman.'" "Always studying and using long words.". ", A personal tragedy for her was seen as a political liability by the town's civil rights leaders. Some have tried to change that. "For nobody can doubt the boundless outreach of her 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. "Oh God," wailed one black woman at the back. Most Americans, even in Montgomery, have never heard of her. Her rhythm is simple and lifestyle frugal. "Claudette gave all of us moral courage. Parks made hers on Dec. 1 that same year. [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. She sat in the colored section about two seats away from an emergency exit, in a Capitol Heights bus. She has literally become a footnote in history. 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. Telephones rang. 10. Two more kicks soon followed. She concentrated her mind on things she had been learning at school. 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. But Colvin told the driver she had paid her fare and that it was her constitutional right to remain where she was. She told me to let Rosa be the one: white people aren't going to bother Rosa, they like her". Like Parks, she, too, pleaded not guilty to. 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. "I felt like Sojourner Truth was pushing down on one shoulder and Harriet Tubman was pushing down on the othersaying, 'Sit down girl!' [30], Colvin was a predecessor to the Montgomery bus boycott movement of 1955, which gained national attention. She refused to give up her seat on a bus months before Rosa Parks' more famous protest. In a letter published shortly before Shabbaz's death, she wrote to Parks with both praise and perspective: "'Standing up' was not even being the first to protest that indignity. "So did the teachers, too. "I respect my elders, but I don't respect what they did to Colvin," she says. She retired in 2004. 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. For several hours, she sat in jail, completely terrified. It was March 2, 1955 and fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin was taking the bus in order to get home after her day of attending classes. [2] Price testified for Colvin, who was tried in juvenile court. Despite her personal challenges, Colvin became one of the four plaintiffs in the Browder v. Gayle case, along with Aurelia S. Browder, Susie McDonald and Mary Louise Smith (Jeanatta Reese, who was initially named a plaintiff in the case, withdrew early on due to outside pressure). Raymond Colvin died in 1993 in New York of a heart attack at age 37. I paid my fare, it's my constitutional right." So, you know, I think you compare history, likemost historians say Columbus discovered America, and it was already populated. "For a while, there was a real distance between me and Mrs Parks over this. ", 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. Parks was, too. Respectfully and faithfully yours. Colvin has said, "Young people think Rosa Parks just sat down on a bus and ended segregation, but that wasn't the case at all. "Mrs Parks was a married woman," said ED Nixon. And, like Parks, the local black establishment started to rally support nationwide for her cause. Broken-down cars sit outside tumble-down houses. Going to a segregated school had one advantage, she found - her teachers gave her a good grounding in black history. Charged with disturbing the peace, breaking the bus segregation laws and assaulting the officers who had apprehended her, she was released later that night. "New York is a completely different culture to Montgomery, Alabama. Nonetheless, Raymond died at the age of 37, reported Core Online. They'd call her a bad girl, and her case wouldn't have a chance."[6][8]. Colvin never married but gave birth to two sons, the first was Raymond Colvin (b. December 1955, died 1993). The once-quiet student was branded a troublemaker by some, and she had to drop out of college. "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. 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. Others say it is because she was a foul-mouthed tearaway. People often make death hoaxes of well-known personalities to get public attention and views. 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 . Her son, Raymond, was born in March 1956. "It is the second time since the Claudette Colvin case that a Negro woman has been arrested for the same thing.". 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. ", 'Facts speak only when the historian calls on them," wrote the historian EH Carr in his landmark work, What Is History? I felt inspired by these women because my teacher taught us about them in so much detail," she says. 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 put him on death row." BBC World Service. "He asked us both to get up. Later, she would tell a reporter that she would sometimes attend the rallies at the churches. But it is also a rare and excellent one that gives her more than a passing, dismissive mention. Aster is known as a talisman of love and an enduring symbol of elegance. But, unlike Parks, Colvin never made it into the civil rights hall of fame. 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. "Well, I'm going to have you arrested," he replied. Another factor was that before long Colvin became pregnant. [16][19], When Colvin refused to get up, she was thinking about a school paper she had written that day about the local customs that prohibited blacks from using the dressing rooms in order to try on clothes in department stores. [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. In 1969, years after moving to NYC, she acquired a job working as a Nurse's aide at a Nursing home. "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. They would have come and seen my parents and found me someone to marry. Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page. [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. Rosa Parks stated: "If the white press got ahold of that information, they would have [had] a field day. 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". Claudette Colvin : biography. "She was not the first person to be arrested for violation of the bus seating ordinance," said J Mills Thornton, an author and academic. Browder vs Gayle Claudette Colvin, Aurelia S Browder, Susie McDonald, Mary Louise Smith, and Jeanette Reese were plaintiffs in the court case of Browder vs Gayle. In the south, male ministers made up the overwhelming majority of leaders. When Claudette Colvin's high school in Montgomery, Alabama, observed Negro History Week in 1955, the 15-year-old had no way of knowing how the stories of Black freedom fighters would soon impact . "She was a victim of both the forces of history and the forces of destiny," said King, in a quote now displayed in the civil rights museum in Atlanta. Complexity, with all its nuances and shaded realities, is a messy business. I was glued to my seat. That left Colvin. (Julie Jacobson/Associated Press). Colvin was initially charged with disturbing the peace, violating the segregation laws, and battering and assaulting a police officer. 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. "Middle-class blacks looked down on King Hill," says Colvin today. [49], The Little-Known Heroes: Claudette Colvin, a children's picture book by Kaushay and Spencer Ford, was published in 2021. "She had remained calm all during the days of her waiting period and during the trial," wrote Robinson. 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. Colvin felt compelled to stand her ground. 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. [46], Young adult book Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice, by Phillip Hoose, was published in 2009 and won the National Book Award for Young People's Literature. 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. [23] She was bailed out by her minister, who told her that she had brought the revolution to Montgomery. I was glued to my seat," she later told Newsweek. Her timing was superb. Colvin was not invited officially for the formal dedication of the museum, which opened to the public in September 2016. 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. "I became very active in her youth group and we use to meet every Sunday afternoon at the Luther church," she says. Claudette Colvin is a civil rights activist of African descent. After training, she landed a job as a nurses aide in a Catholic hospital in Manhattan. This led to a few articles and profiles by others in subsequent years. "They just dropped me. Colvin was a kid. The court declared her a ward of the state and remanded her to the custody of her family. [2] Colvin and her sister referred to the Colvins as their parents and took their last name. 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. Sikora telephoned a startled Colvin and wrote an article about her. Two police officers arrived and pulled her from her seat. Reeves was a teenage grocery delivery boy who was found having sex with a white woman. Colvin and her friends were sitting in a row a little more than half way down the bus - two were on the right side of the bus and two on the left - and a white passenger was standing in the aisle between them. She gave birth to a fair-skin child named Raymond in the year 1956 whose skin tone was similar to her partner. The problem arose because all the seats on the bus were taken. ", She believes that, if her pregnancy had been the only issue, they would have found a way to overcome it. "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. [16], Through the trial Colvin was represented by Fred Gray, a lawyer for the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), which was organizing civil rights actions. Meanwhile, Parks had been transformed from a politically-conscious activist to an upstanding, unfortunate Everywoman. [28], The Montgomery bus boycott was able to unify the people of Montgomery, regardless of educational background or class. - 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. 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. 05 September 1939 - Court trial. Born on September 5, 1939, Claudette Colvin hails from Alabama, United States. "I waited for about three hours until my mother arrived with my pastor to bail me out. Claudette Colvin was born on September 5, 1939, in Montgomery, Alabama. 1939- Claudette was born in Birmingham 1951- 22nd Amendment was put into place, limiting the presidential term of office . Colvins feisty testimony was instrumental in the shocking success of the suit, which ended segregated seating on Montgomerys buses. 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. 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. [27] During the court case, Colvin described her arrest: "I kept saying, 'He has no civil right this is my constitutional right you have no right to do this.' Claudette Colvin was the first person arrested by the police in Montgomery, AL for refusing to give up her bus seat. .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. But somewhere en route they mislaid the truth. I was sitting on the last seat that they said you could sit in. 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