|
Listen to this article here
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Claudette Colvin refused to give up her seat for a white passenger on a bus, nine months before Rosa Parks famously did the same.
Fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin was a student at Booker T. Washington High School located outside of Montgomery, Alabama. Despite her age, she had a thorough understanding of the dehumanizing treatment she and her fellow Black classmates often faced.
Day of the Bus Incident
On March 2, 1955, Colvin and 13 of her classmates boarded a school bus to head home at the end of the day. The designated white section had filled up and left a white student without a seat. Then the bus driver instructed the Black students sitting in the same row as Colvin to get up. When three of her classmates got up, Colvin refused. Despite a seat becoming available, the white student didn’t want to share a row with a Black student.
The driver and another white student shouted at Colvin asking her why she was still sitting there. Having recently learned about the Constitution and abolitionists, Colvin stayed headstrong in her refusal to move. “I paid my fare, it’s my constitutional right,” she stated.
At the time, segregation laws enforced the placement of Black passengers at the back of the bus behind white riders. If the white section became full, Black people were asked to stand to open up more seats.
Two police officers boarded the bus and pulled Colvin from her seat. The police report states that Colvin struggled against officers but she remains adamant that she went “limp.” Ultimately, she was arrested and booked into an adult jail facility. Colvin recalls the unease she felt while sitting in jail. Later her minister arrived to pay her bail. The Colvin family stayed up that night fearing possible retaliation from the white population of Montgomery.
The Trial
She went to trial in May of that year for the three charges brought against her. Two of the charges were dropped, disturbing the peace and violation of segregation laws. At the time, there were contradicting laws regarding segregation in Montgomery. One enforced the separation of Black and white people. The other stated that no person, regardless of race, should be asked to give up their seat if no other seat was available.
The court found her guilty of assaulting a police officer.
The local NAACP chapter and similar civil rights groups considered pursuing a rebuttal to the ruling. They later decided that because of her age and dark complexion, she wasn’t the right candidate for a federal case.
Related Links
Lasting Impact
This situation heavily influenced Rosa Parks, a 42-year-old NAACP secretary also from Montgomery. In December of 1955, while on her way home from work, Parks received instructions to give up her bus seat for a white man. Parks, like Colvin, refused to comply and was subsequently arrested.
Colvin and Parks had been in communication during the summer of 1955. Parks had even appointed Covlin to secretary of the NAACP Youth Council.
The next year Colvin was named as a plaintiff in the case of Browder v. Gayle. This case challenged the segregation policies of the Montgomery bus system. Thurgood Marshall and lawyers from the NAACP joined leading attorney Fred Gray. The case made its way up to the Supreme Court, which ruled the segregation statute unconstitutional.
Despite the ruling, Martin Luther King Jr. called for the boycott of the bus system to continue. This was to ensure that the new ruling would be enforced.
Even though Rosa Parks’ story is more widely known, Colvin’s actions that day greatly contributed to the fight for equal rights. In 2009, Colvin’s attorney Fred Gray told Newsweek, “[She] threw the stone in the water and forced them to jump in and think about what they had to do.” He continued, “Claudette gave all of us moral courage. If she had not done what she did, I am not sure that we would have been able to mount the support for Mrs. Parks.”
Continued Recognization
Congressman Joe Crowley awarded Colvin a Congressional Certificate in 2018, recognizing her legacy. In 2021, she filed for her record to be expunged, and a month later, her request was granted. Nearly 70 years later, Colvin, now 84, resides in New York City.