Claudette Colvin was 15 years old in 1955, growing up in Montgomery, Alabama. She went to a segregated school and, like many of her other African American classmates, she used city buses to get to school and back home. In late February/early March, they were studying Jim Crow laws and the civil rights movement. Returning home on March 2nd, the bus got more and more crowded until all the seats intended for white riders were full. This meant that Black riders needed to get up and move back or remain standing. Claudette wouldn’t get up. Later, she recalled, “History kept me stuck to my seat. I felt the hand of Harriet Tubman pushing down on one shoulder and Sojourner Truth down on the other.” The three classmates of hers who were in the same row with her got up and moved back. Still, Claudette would not move. Even though there was a seat for the white woman, she wouldn’t sit down. To sit down next to a Black person on the bus would be to recognize her as the same as a white person.1
The driver called the police and Claudette was dragged from the bus and arrested. On the ride to the police station, one of the officers sat next to her in the back seat. The officers made vulgar comments about her body and measurements. Claudette was terrified and she prayed and cried. Ultimately, she was charged with, “disturbing the peace, violating the segregation laws, and battering and assaulting a police officer” even though she had not attacked anyone. This was nine months before Rosa Parks refused to leave her seat.2
You might be wondering why we hear about Rosa Parks, but not Claudette Colvin. Claudette herself thought it was because she didn’t have good hair, her skin was too dark, and she was a teenager from the wrong side of town. By contrast, Rosa Parks was a secretary, she was charismatic, she was middle-aged, she “looked” middle class. The leaders of the Civil Rights Movement knew they needed a representative – someone who could be a nationally recognized figure that white people would pay attention to. It’s too easy to dismiss a teenager out of hand.3
Claudette was one of four plaintiffs in a case that made it to the U.S. Supreme Court – a case that ruled that the law segregating buses in Montgomery and Alabama was unconstitutional. Claudette testified despite threats of violence by segregationists; she was brave. Before all this happened, she had dreamed of getting involved in politics, becoming a civil rights attorney, even becoming president one day. But shortly after her own trial, she ended up an unwed mother. No one wanted her as an employee because she was nationally known for resisting segregation. She moved to New York and she was ostracized by her own community, too. She ended up having a quiet life as a nurse’s aide. She didn’t really tell the story for decades – not until she retired.4
It’s easy for folks to judge and reject someone they don’t want to listen to anyway. The folks leading the civil rights movement knew they needed the “right” face to be heard and Claudette didn’t have it. They made a strategic choice because it was so crucial to take the movement forward. Then, once Claudette got pregnant, there was little or no hope that she would be taken seriously at all. Rosa Parks herself said that if the white press had known about Claudette, “They’d call her a bad girl, and her case wouldn’t have a chance.”5
[i] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudette_Colvin & https://www.npr.org/2009/03/15/1017198* 89/before-rosa-parks-there-was-claudette-colvin & https://rosaparksbiography.org/bio/claudette-colvin/
[ii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudette_Colvin & https://www.npr.org/2009/03/15/101719889/before-rosa-parks-there-was-claudette-colvin
[iii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudette_Colvin & https://rosaparksbiography.org/bio/claudette-colvin/
[iv] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudette_Colvin & https://www.npr.org/2009/03/15/101719889/before-rosa-parks-there-was-claudette-colvin & https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/feb/25/claudette-colvin-the-woman-who-refused-to-give-up-her-bus-seat-nine-months-before-rosa-parks
[v] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudette_Colvin