They never came and discussed it with my parents. "We didn't know what was going to happen, but we knew something would happen. She worked there for 35 years until her . The baby was fair-skinned just like his dad and people accused her of having a white baby. "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. If I had told my father who did it, he would have killed him. In a United States district court, she testified before the three-judge panel that heard the case. That meant most of the dark complexion ones didn't like themselves. 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 . But she rarely told her story after moving to New York City. Parks stayed put. As well as the predictable teenage fantasy of "marrying a baseball player", she also had strong political convictions. She sat in the colored section about two seats away from an emergency exit, in a Capitol Heights bus. 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. Colvin was one of four plaintiffs in the first federal court case filed by civil rights attorney Fred Gray on February 1, 1956, as Browder v. Gayle, to challenge bus segregation in the city. "They'd call her a bad girl, and her case wouldn't have a chance. 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.". In his Pulitzer prize-winning account of the civil rights years, Parting The Waters, Taylor Branch wrote: "Even if Montgomery Negroes were willing to rally behind an unwed, pregnant teenager - which they were not - her circumstances would make her an extremely vulnerable standard bearer. Nobody can doubt the height of her character, nobody can doubt the depth of her Christian commitment and devotion to the teachings of Jesus." Nor was Colvin the last to be passed over. She works the night shift and sleeps "when the sleep falls on her" during the day. But, unlike Parks, Colvin never made it into the civil rights hall of fame. A 15-year-old high school student at the time, Colvin got fed up and refused to move even before Parks. Claudette had two sons named Raymond and Randy Colvin, and her first pregnancy was at the age of 16 with a much older man. Colvin was born on September 5, 1939, in Montgomery, Alabama. ", 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. [23] She was bailed out by her minister, who told her that she had brought the revolution to Montgomery. 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. 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." 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." The leaders in the Civil Rights Movement tried to keep up appearances and make the "most appealing" protesters the most seen. 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. 2023 BBC. Nonetheless, Raymond died at the age of 37, reported Core Online. ", She believes that, if her pregnancy had been the only issue, they would have found a way to overcome it. "It took on the form of harassment. [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. A second son, Randy, born in 1960, gave her four grandchildren, who are all deeply proud of their grandmother's heroism. The case, organized and filed in federal court by civil rights attorney Fred Gray, challenged city bus segregation in Montgomery as unconstitutional. Read about our approach to external linking. 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. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data. They forced her into the back of a squad car, one officer jumping in after her. But Colvin told the driver she had paid her fare and that it was her constitutional right to remain where she was. ", They took her to City Hall, where she was charged with misconduct, resisting arrest and violating the city segregation laws. "We learned about negro spirituals and recited poems but my social studies teachers went into more detail," she says. Angry protests erupt over Greek rail disaster, Explosive found in check-in luggage at US airport, 1894 shipwreck confirms tale of treacherous lifeboat. "I make up stories to convince them to stay in bed." "Are you going to stand up?" Why has Claudette Colvin been denied her place in history? Check below for more deets about Claudette Colvin. "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. 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. As in 2023, Claudette Colvin's age is 83 years. BBC World Service. Raymond Colvin died in 1993 in New York of a heart attack, aged 37. To the exclusively male and predominantly middle-class, church-dominated, local black leadership in Montgomery, she was a fallen woman. Parks became one of Time Magazine's 100 most important people of the 20th century . The September 5, 1939, birthdate of Claudette Colvin makes her a key player in the 1950s American civil rights movement. [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. The urban bustle surrounding her could not seem further away from King Hill. Today, she sits in a diner in the Bronx, her pudding-basin haircut framing a soft face with a distant smile. 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. Claudette Colvin : biography. I was glued to my seat," she later told Newsweek. "The news travelled fast," wrote Robinson. Officers were called to the scene and Colvin was forcefully taken off of the bus and . [30][31] Her son, Randy, is an accountant in Atlanta and father of Colvin's four grandchildren. 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. Her son, Raymond, was born 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. [30] Claudette began a job in 1969 as a nurse's aide in a nursing home in Manhattan. Despite the light sentence, Colvin could not escape the court of public opinion. ", To complicate matters, a pregnant black woman, Mrs Hamilton, got on and sat next to Colvin. 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. In this respect, the civil rights movement in Montgomery moved fast. Blake persisted. Performance & security by Cloudflare. Her first son died in 1993. 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. Until recently, none of her workmates knew anything of her pioneering role in the civil rights movement. The bus froze. For all her bravado, Colvin was shocked by the extremity of what happened next. With funding from church donations and activities organized by the chapter, Colvin had her day in court. King Hill, Montgomery, is the sepia South. By then I didnt have much time for celebrating anyway. [32], In 2005, Colvin told the Montgomery Advertiser that she would not have changed her decision to remain seated on the bus: "I feel very, very proud of what I did," she said. 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. "In a few hours, every Negro youngster on the streets discussed Colvin's arrest. Martin Luther King Jr., had been seeking to stir the outrage of African Americans and sympathetic whites into civic action. None of them spoke to me; they didn't see if I was okay. The full enormity of what she had done was only just beginning to dawn on her. One white woman defended Colvin to the police; another said that, if she got away with this, "they will take over". [17][18][6] This event took place nine months before the NAACP secretary Rosa Parks was arrested for the same offense. She earned mostly As in her classes and aspired to become president one day. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. It was going to be a long night on Dixie Drive. In 1955, at age 15, Claudette Colvin . [50], In 2022, a biopic of Colvin titled Spark written by Niceole R. Levy and directed by Anthony Mackie was announced. "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. "Claudette gave all of us moral courage. But Colvin was not the only casualty of this distortion. The driver kept on going but stopped when he reached a junction where a police squad car was waiting. Her political inclination was fueled in part by an incident with her schoolmate, Jeremiah Reeves; his case was the first time that she had witnessed the work of the NAACP. She is a civil rights activist from the 1950s and a retired nurse aide. The Supreme Court summarily affirmed the District Court decision on November 13, 1956. Somehow, as Mrs. Parks was, too. Although some of the details might seem familiar, this is not the Rosa Parks story. And I just kept blabbing things out, and I never stopped. 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. Rosa didnt give me enough time to put in for a day off, she recalled. But go to King Hill and mention her name, and the first thing they will tell you is that she was the first. Colvin could not attend the proclamation due to health concerns. She worked there for 35 years, retiring in 2004. Your IP: Colvin. The other three moved, but another black woman, Ruth Hamilton, who was pregnant, got on and sat next to Colvin. 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. "I became very active in her youth group and we use to meet every Sunday afternoon at the Luther church," she says. [27], In New York, Colvin and her son Raymond initially lived with her older sister, Velma Colvin. "I would sit in the back and no one would even know I was there. Her parents were Mary Jane Gadson and C.P. I felt the hand of Harriet Tubman pushing down on one shoulder and Sojourner Truth pushing down on the other. "There was segregation everywhere. And, from there, the short distance to sanctity: they called her "Saint Rosa", "an angel walking", "a heaven-sent messenger". "When I told my mother I was pregnant, I thought she was going to have a heart attack. "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. "I was really afraid, because you just didn't know what white people might do at that time," Colvin later said. [37], "All we want is the truth, why does history fail to get it right?" 05 September 1939 - Court trial. The court declared her a ward of the state and remanded her to the custody of her family. 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 made history at the young age of 15 by refusing to give up her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama to a white woman. Jeanetta Reese later resigned from the case. She retired in 2004. She refused to give up her seat on a bus months before Rosa Parks' more famous protest. It reads: "The wonderful thing which you have just done makes me feel like a craven coward. She shouted that her constitutional rights were being violated. She became quiet and withdrawn. Her son Raymond Colvin died of a heart attack in 1993. "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. 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. The organisation didn't want a teenager in the role, she says. Name: Claudette Colvin Birth Year: 1939 Birth date: September 5, 1939 Birth State: Alabama Birth City: Montgomery Birth Country: United States Gender: Female Best Known For: Claudette Colvin is. You had to take a brown paper bag and draw a diagram of your foot and take it to the store". 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. People often make death hoaxes of well-known personalities to get public attention and views. Anything to detach herself from the horror of reality. Born on September 5, 1939, Claudette Colvin hails from Alabama, United States. 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.'". You have to take a stand and say, 'This is not right.'. [2] She was also a member of the NAACP Youth Council, where she formed a close relationship with her mentor, Rosa Parks. If one white person wanted to sit down there, then all the black people on that row were supposed to get up and either stand or move further to the back. Phillip Hoose also wrote about her in the young adult biography Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice. 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. Phillip Hoose. And, like the pregnant Mrs Hamilton, many African-Americans refused to tolerate the indignity of the South's racist laws in silence. Colvin took her seat near the emergency door next to one black girl; two others sat across the aisle from her. 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 . The legal case turned on the testimony of four plaintiffs, one of whom was Claudette Colvin. 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. She shops with her workmates and watches action movies on video. I was crying," she says. 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 was initially charged with disturbing the peace, violating the segregation laws, and battering and assaulting a police officer. Ms. Colvin in New York on Feb. 5, 2009. Rembert said, "I know people have heard her name before, but I just thought we should have a day to celebrate her." "She lived in a little shack. On 2 March 1955, Colvin and her friends finished their classes and were let out of school early. After her refusal to give up her seat, Colvin was arrested on several charges, including violating the city's segregation laws. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. The driver caught a glimpse of them through his mirror. "She was not the first person to be arrested for violation of the bus seating ordinance," said J Mills Thornton, an author and academic. [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.' Two police officers arrived and pulled her from her seat. So he turned on the black men sitting behind her. "He said he wanted the people to know about the 15-year-old, because really, if I had not made the first cry for freedom, there wouldn't have been a Rosa Parks, and after Rosa Parks, there wouldn't have been a Dr King. It felt like Harriet Tubman was pushing me down on one shoulder and Sojourner Truth was pushing me down on the other shoulder, she mused many years later. Then, they will reflect on a time when they took a stand on an important issue. "Well, I'm going to have you arrested," he replied. ", 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. 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. 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. 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. I don't know how I got off that bus but the other students said they manhandled me off the bus and put me in the squad car. She dreamed of becoming the President of the United States. Born in Alabama #33. I can still vividly hear the click of those keys. After training, she landed a job as a nurses aide in a Catholic hospital in Manhattan. 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. That summer she became pregnant by a much older man. [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. [39] Later, Rev. Colvin later moved to New York City and worked as a nurse's aide. 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. "I wasn't with it at all. .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. ", "If the white press got ahold of that information, they would have [had] a field day," said Rosa Parks. She appreciated, but never embraced, King's strategy of nonviolent resistance, remains a keen supporter of Malcolm X and was constantly frustrated by sexism in the movement. The bus driver had the authority to assign the seats, so when more white passengers got on the bus, he asked for the seats.". Cloudflare Ray ID: 7a1897c67fea0e3a They'd call her a bad girl, and her case wouldn't have a chance."[6][8]. Instead of being celebrated as Rosa Parks would be just nine months later, fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin found herself shunned by her . She wants . Most of the people didn't have problems with us sitting on the bus, most New Yorkers cared about economic problems. That was worse than stealing, you know, talking back to a white person. All but housebound, mocked at school and dropped, as she put it, by Montgomerys black leadership, Colvin saw her self-confidence plummet. I was afraid they might rape me. Three of the students had got up reluctantly and I remained sitting next to the window," she says. 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. ", Montgomery's black establishment leaders decided they would have to wait for the right person. "But according to [the commissioner], she was the first person ever to enter a plea of not guilty to such a charge.". The bus went three stops before several white passengers got on. It was a case of 'bourgey' blacks looking down on the working-class blacks. I knew what was happening, but I just kept trying to shut it out.". 9. She needed support. I was glad that an adult had finally stood up to the system, but I felt left out.. Men instructed their wives to walk or to share rides in neighbour's autos.". [citation needed]. 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. He was . Her rhythm is simple and lifestyle frugal. Claudette Colvin (born September 5, 1939) is a retired American nurse aide who was a pioneer of the 1950s civil rights movement. [2][10] When Colvin was eight years old, the Colvins moved to King Hill, a poor black neighborhood in Montgomery where she spent the rest of her childhood. Claudette Colvin was an American civil rights activist during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. "[33] "I'm not disappointed. Rule and Guide: 100 ways to more Success for only $8.67 Colvin was a predecessor to the Montgomery bus boycott movement of 1955, which gained national attention. One incident in particular preoccupied her at the time - the plight of her schoolmate, Jeremiah Reeves. While Parks has been heralded as a civil rights heroine, Colvin's story has received little notice. She and her son Raymond moved in with Velma while Colvin looked for work. It is a letter Colvin knew nothing about. [16], Through the trial Colvin was represented by Fred Gray, a lawyer for the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), which was organizing civil rights actions. This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. I felt like Sojourner Truth was pushing down on one shoulder and Harriet Tubman was pushing down on the othersaying, 'Sit down girl!' ", Rosa Parks is a heroine to the US civil rights movement. 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. The three black passengers sitting alongside Parks rose reluctantly. She fell out of history altogether. Claudette Colvin's birthstone is Sapphire. Nor was Colvin the last to be a long night on Dixie Drive you just performed triggered security... Months before Rosa Parks ' more famous protest constitutional right to remain where she was a fallen.! 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