Parks became one of Time Magazine's 100 most important people of the 20th century . The three other girls got up; Colvin stayed put. "I would sit in the back and no one would even know I was there. "Mrs Parks was a married woman," said ED Nixon. 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." Most Americans, even in Montgomery, have never heard of her. She spent the next decade going back and forth like a yo-yo between the two cities, she said. "She was an A student, quiet, well-mannered, neat, clean, intelligent, pretty, and deeply religious," writes Jo Ann Robinson in her authoritative book, The Montgomery Bus Boycott And The Women Who Started It. NPR's Margot Adler has said that black organizations believed that Rosa Parks would be a better figure for a test case for integration because she was an adult, had a job, and had a middle-class appearance. 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. "I was really afraid, because you just didn't know what white people might do at that time," says Colvin. Moreover, she was not the first person to take a stand by keeping her seat and challenging the system. "I was really afraid, because you just didn't know what white people might do at that time," Colvin later said. It was a case of 'bourgey' blacks looking down on the working-class blacks. [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. You can't sugarcoat it. I didn't want to discuss it with them," she says. Claudette Colvin was an African American civil rights activist who pioneered the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s. Then, they will reflect on a time when they took a stand on an important issue. [Mrs Hamilton] said she was not going to get up and that she had paid her fare and that she didn't feel like standing," recalls Colvin. All Rights Reserved. Blake approached her. [24] She was convicted on all three charges in juvenile court. Broken-down cars sit outside tumble-down houses. They never came and discussed it with my parents. Claudette Colvin Popularity . 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. [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. he asked. "The NAACP had come back to me and my mother said: 'Claudette, they must really need you, because they rejected you because you had a child out of wedlock,'" Colvin says. "He asked us both to get up. She concentrated her mind on things she had been learning at school. "I felt like Sojourner Truth was pushing down on one shoulder and Harriet Tubman was pushing down on the othersaying, 'Sit down girl!' "She was not the first person to be arrested for violation of the bus seating ordinance," said J Mills Thornton, an author and academic. [16] Referring to the segregation on the bus and the white woman: "She couldn't sit in the same row as us because that would mean we were as good as her". Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter. After Colvin was released from prison, there were fears that her home would be attacked. ", Nonetheless, the shock waves of her defiance had reverberated throughout Montgomery and beyond. 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. Joseph Rembert said, "If nobody did anything for Claudette Colvin in the past why don't we do something for her right now?" "We had unpaved streets and outside toilets. The bus driver had the authority to assign the seats, so when more white passengers got on the bus, he asked for the seats.". ", When the boycott was over and the African-American community had emerged victorious, King, Nixon and Parks appeared for the cameras. Associated With. So he said, 'If you are not going to get up, I will get a policeman. On March 2, 1955, Colvin was riding home on a city bus after school when a bus driver told her to give up her seat to a white passenger. It was a journey not only into history but also mythology. 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. Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page. 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.". She refused, saying, "It's my constitutional right to sit here as much as that lady. 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. "However, the black leadership in Montgomery at the time thought that we should wait. "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'. The woman alleged rape; Reeves insisted it was consensual. She sat in the colored section about two seats away from an emergency exit, in a Capitol Heights bus. The policeman grabbed her and took her to a patrolman's car in which his colleagues were waiting. Born in Alabama #33. The Supreme Court summarily affirmed the District Court decision on November 13, 1956. Austin, but she was raised by her great-aunt and great-uncle, Mary Ann and Q.P. The court, however, ruled against her and put her on probation. So he said, 'If you are not going to get up, I will get a policeman.'" Others say it is because she was a foul-mouthed tearaway. ", Montgomery's black establishment leaders decided they would have to wait for the right person. In this respect, the civil rights movement in Montgomery moved fast. He was so light-skinned (like his father) that people frequently said she had a baby by a white man. "She had remained calm all during the days of her waiting period and during the trial," wrote Robinson. CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST, 81, BIRMINGHAM, AL. "They just dropped me. She retired in 2004. "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. A year later, on 20 December 1956, the US Supreme Court ruled that segregation on the buses must end. Parks was, too. Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth were both African Americans who sought the abolition of slavery, Tubman was well known for helping 300 fellow slaves escape slavery using the, Truth was a passionate campaigner who fought for women's rights, best known for her speech, Claudette Colvin spoke to Outlook on the BBC World Service. She deserves our attention, our gratitude and a warm, bright spotlight all her own. . "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. Ms. Colvin made her stand on March 2, 1955, and Mrs. "They'd call her a bad girl, and her case wouldn't have a chance. She worked there for 35 years until her . Smith was arrested in October 1955, but was also not considered an appropriate candidate for a broader campaign - ED Nixon claimed that her father was a drunkard; Smith insists he was teetotal. 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. 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. She also had become pregnant and they thought an unwed mother would attract too much negative attention in a public legal battle. (Julie Jacobson/Associated Press). "He asked us both to get up. We used to have a lot of juke joints up there, and maybe men would drink too much and get into a fight. "I remember during Easter one year, I was to get a pair of black patent shoes but you could only get them from the white stores, so my mother drew the outline of my feet on a brown paper bag in order to get the closest size, because we weren't allowed to go in the store to try them on.". "I became very active in her youth group and we use to meet every Sunday afternoon at the Luther church," she says. 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". [43] The judge ordered that the juvenile record be expunged and destroyed in December 2021, stating that Colvin's refusal had "been recognized as a courageous act on her behalf and on behalf of a community of affected people". Until recently, none of her workmates knew anything of her pioneering role in the civil rights movement. He contacted Montgomery Councilmen Charles Jinright and Tracy Larkin, and in 2017, the Council passed a resolution for a proclamation honoring Colvin. [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.' Colvin took her seat near the emergency door next to one black girl; two others sat across the aisle from her. Claudette Colvin's birth flower is Aster/Myosotis. A second son, Randy, born in 1960, gave her four grandchildren, who are all deeply proud of their grandmothers heroism. "I make up stories to convince them to stay in bed." Taylor Branch. To the exclusively male and predominantly middle-class, church-dominated, local black leadership in Montgomery, she was a fallen woman. Her reputation also made it impossible for her to find a job. He was drug-addicted and alcoholic and passed away of a cardiac attack in Colvin's apartment. 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. She fell out of history altogether. She says she expected some abuse from the driver, but nothing more. Listen to Claudette Colvin's interview on Outlook on the BBC World Service. 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 . Sikora telephoned a startled Colvin and wrote an article about her. Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. Site contains certain content that is owned A&E Television Networks, LLC. Claudette Colvin and her guardians relocated to Montgomery when . The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. "We learned about negro spirituals and recited poems but my social studies teachers went into more detail," she says. [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. She withdrew from college, and struggled in the local environment. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People briefly considered using Colvin's case to challenge the segregation laws, but they decided against it because of her age. Like Parks, she, too, pleaded not guilty to breaking the law. She was arrested and became one of four plaintiffs in Browder v. Gayle, which ruled that Montgomery's segregated bus system was unconstitutional. "[38], Colvin's role has not gone completely unrecognized. . Parks," her former attorney, Fred Gray, told Newsweek. "What's going on with these niggers?" "Ms Parks was quiet and very gentle and very soft-spoken, but she would always say we should fight for our freedom.". 2023 BBC. He was born on March 3, 1931, in Mound City, S.D., the son of Alfred Gunderson and Verna Johnson Gunderson. Meanwhile, Parks had been transformed from a politically-conscious activist to an upstanding, unfortunate Everywoman. "She had been tracked down by the zeitgeist - the spirit of the times." ", "I wanted to go north and liberate my people," explains Colvin. [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. Her rhythm is simple and lifestyle frugal. [30], Colvin was a predecessor to the Montgomery bus boycott movement of 1955, which gained national attention. Read about our approach to external linking. The bus went three stops before several white passengers got on. Performance & security by Cloudflare. 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. Rosa Parks was thrown off the bus on a Thursday; by Friday, activists were distributing leaflets that highlighted her arrest as one of many, including those of Colvin and Mary Louise Smith: "Another Negro woman has been arrested and thrown in jail because she refused to get up out of her seat on the bus for a white person to sit down," they read. She sat down in the front of the bus and refused to move on her own will when asked. 83 Year Old #3. If she had not done what she did, I am not sure that we would have been able to mount the support for Mrs. "New York is a completely different culture to Montgomery, Alabama. "They did think I was nutty and crazy.". She refused to name the father or have anything to do with him. In the nine months between her arrest and that of Parks, another young black woman, Mary Louise Smith, suffered a similar fate. [50], In 2022, a biopic of Colvin titled Spark written by Niceole R. Levy and directed by Anthony Mackie was announced. "She was a bookworm," says Gloria Hardin, who went to school with Colvin and who still lives in King Hill. Today, she sits in a diner in the Bronx, her pudding-basin haircut framing a soft face with a distant smile. In New York, Colvin gave birth to another son, Randy. It is a letter Colvin knew nothing about. Ms. Colvin in New York on Feb. 5, 2009. Claudette had two sons named Raymond and Randy Colvin, and her first pregnancy was at the age of 16 with a much older man. [30] Claudette began a job in 1969 as a nurse's aide in a nursing home in Manhattan. Officers were called to the scene and Colvin was forcefully taken off of the bus and . For many years, Montgomery's black leaders did not publicize Colvin's pioneering effort. Colvin was the first person to be arrested for challenging Montgomery's bus segregation policies, so her story made a few local papers - but nine months later, the same act of defiance by Rosa Parks was reported all over the world. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. 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.'". "The light-skinned girls always thought they were better looking," says Colvin. But people in King Hill do not remember Colvin as that type of girl, and the accusation irritates Colvin to this day. She worked there for 35 years, retiring in 2004. "Well, I'm going to have you arrested," he replied. She resisted bus segregation nine months before Rosa Parks, . She turns, watches, wipes, feeds and washes the elderly patients and offers them a gentle, consoling word when they become disoriented. And, like Parks, the local black establishment started to rally support nationwide for her cause. asked the policeman. [37], "All we want is the truth, why does history fail to get it right?" That was worse than stealing, you know, talking back to a white person. [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. "I recited Edgar Allan Poe, Annabel Lee, the characters in Midsummer Night's Dream, the Lord's Prayer and the 23rd Psalm." ", "If the white press got ahold of that information, they would have [had] a field day," said Rosa Parks. She became quiet and withdrawn. In 1955, at age 15, Claudette Colvin . [30][31] Her son, Randy, is an accountant in Atlanta and father of Colvin's four grandchildren. "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. Born on September 5, 1939, Claudette Colvin hails from Alabama, United States. You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked. 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. Claudette Colvin is an activist who was a pioneer in the civil rights movement in Alabama during the 1950s. Colvin gave birth to Raymond, a son. She was convicted on all charges, appealed and lost again. "I respect my elders, but I don't respect what they did to Colvin," she says. On 2 March 1955, Colvin and her friends finished their classes and were let out of school early. 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. So, you know, I think you compare history, likemost historians say Columbus discovered America, and it was already populated. 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. 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. With funding from church donations and activities organized by the chapter, Colvin had her day in court. [49], The Little-Known Heroes: Claudette Colvin, a children's picture book by Kaushay and Spencer Ford, was published in 2021. 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. 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. On June 13, 1956, the judges determined that the state and local laws requiring bus segregation in Alabama were unconstitutional. Colvin was not invited officially for the formal dedication of the museum, which opened to the public in September 2016. The court declared her a ward of the state and remanded her to the custody of her family. 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 when she was found guilty, her agonised sobs penetrated the atmosphere of the courthouse. Claudette Colvin was born on September 5, 1939, in Montgomery, Alabama. Claudette Colvin became a teenage mother in 1956 when she gave birth to a boy named Raymond. "I wasn't with it at all. [2][14] Despite being a good student, Colvin had difficulty connecting with her peers in school due to grief. "I do feel like what I did was a spark and it caught on. 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. 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. [23] She was bailed out by her minister, who told her that she had brought the revolution to Montgomery. The organisation didn't want a teenager in the role, she says. Much of the writing on civil rights history in Montgomery has focused on the arrest of Parks, another woman who refused to give up her seat on the bus, nine months after 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. "But according to [the commissioner], she was the first person ever to enter a plea of not guilty to such a charge.". "There was segregation everywhere. "[33] "I'm not disappointed. Roy White, who was in charge of most of the project, asked Colvin if she would like to appear in a video to tell her story, but Colvin refused. Mothers expressed concern about permitting their children on the buses. [47], A re-enactment of Colvin's resistance is portrayed in a 2014 episode of the comedy TV series Drunk History about Montgomery, Alabama. Claudette Colvin, 81, was a true pioneer in the Civil Rights Movement. 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. 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. She was 15. Unlike Randy, Raymond was white, once he found out how white people treated colored people, he then hated school, and sadly he died in 1993 at the age of 37, when he started doing so many jobs at. 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 "For a while, there was a real distance between me and Mrs Parks over this. She was fingerprinted, denied a phone call and locked into a cell. 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. Claudette Colvin is a civil rights activist who, before .css-47aoac{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-thickness:0.0625rem;text-decoration-color:inherit;text-underline-offset:0.25rem;color:#A00000;-webkit-transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;}.css-47aoac:hover{color:#595959;text-decoration-color:border-link-body-hover;}Rosa Parks, refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger. History had me glued to the seat.. A poor, single, pregnant, black, teenage mother who had both taken on the white establishment and fallen foul of the black one. Colvin says that after Supreme Court made its decision, things slowly began to change. Another cracked a joke about her bra size. "The news travelled fast," wrote Robinson. James Edward "Jungle Jim" Colvin, 69, of Juliette, Georgia, passed away on Saturday, February 25, 2023. He went back to Colvin, now seven months pregnant. 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