We all know the story. Montgomery Alabama, 1955. An African American woman refuses to give up her seat on a city bus, in violation of local and state segregation laws. She is arrested. Months after the arrest, a bus boycott is organized and eventually, the laws that allowed the woman to be arrested are struck down by the Federal District Court. The ruling is upheld by the United States Supreme Court.
That African American woman is, of course, Claudette Colvin.
Claudette was born on September 5, 1939 in Montgomery Alabama.
On March 2, 1955, Colvin was returning home from Booker T. Washington High School on a city bus. She was fifteen years old. Colvin sat in the “colored” section of the bus. However, the bus became crowded and if no seats were available in the white section, those in the “colored” section had to give up their seats. This is what occurred and Colvin refused.
Colvin describes what happened next:
She refused, saying, "It's my constitutional right to sit here as much as that lady. I paid my fare, it's my constitutional right." Colvin felt compelled to stand her ground. "I felt like Sojourner Truth was pushing down on one shoulder and Harriet Tubman was pushing down on the other—saying, 'Sit down girl!' I was glued to my seat," she later told Newsweek.
Colvin was arrested and spent several hours in jail before her minister paid her bail. She recalls that her family remained awake that night for fear of potential retaliation.
The NAACP wanted a test case to challenge segregation. They considered Colvin’s case but decided that they did not want Colvin to be the face of the legal battle. The NAACP knew that Colvin was considered outspoken and “feisty.” She would also soon be pregnant by a married man. Colvin gave birth in March of 1956. The NAACP thought that an unmarried, pregnant teenager would hurt the cause.
This suited Colvin’s family. Colvin said that her family told her not to discuss the events and they sought no publicity or notoriety.
“My mother told me to be quiet about what I did,” Ms. Colvin recalled. “She told me: ‘Let Rosa be the one. White people aren’t going to bother Rosa — her skin is lighter than yours and they like her.’ ”
Ms. Colvin said she came to terms with her “raw feelings” a long time ago. “I know in my heart that she was the right person,” she said of Mrs. Parks.
Colvin was one of the plaintiff’s in Browder v Gayle, the case that ultimately held that Montgomery’s segregated bus laws were unconstitutional. The plaintiffs were:
Aurelia Browder, arrested in April of 1955 for refusing to surrender her bus seat to a white person;
Susie McDonald, arrested in October for same;
Mary Louise Smith, arrested in October;
Jeanetta Reese, who dropped her lawsuit after receiving threats.
What about Rosa Parks, you may ask. The Parks case was winding its way through the state court system. Civil Rights leaders looked around for a case that they could take directly to Federal Court. They revisited the Colvin matter and brought the case with the other plaintiffs. Parks became the spark for the bus boycott and the name most identified with the issue but was not a part of the Federal action.
Soon after the events, Colvin moved to New York. She became a nurse and retired in 2004.
Parks was a longtime activist and at the time of her arrest she was the secretary for the local chapter of the NAACP. She was married, educated, well-liked with a calm demeanor. She was considered the right person to be the face of the bus boycott. Parks also agreed to be the face of the movement, a brave decision above and beyond her refusal to give up her bus seat. Colvin, on the other hand, slipped through the cracks of history. But she was first.* And, she was only fifteen.
The Colvin incident seems to have been rediscovered beginning in the 2000’s. You can find many articles on Colvin now. Some of the ones I relied on are:
The Guardian
Biography
New York Times
Newsweek
NPR
Like all history, there are minor differences in peoples recollections over time and some minor details conflict.
* Who really knows if Colvin was first. There could have been others arrested in Montgomery for violating the city’s bus laws. The law had been enacted in 1900. Perhaps there are undiscovered Civil rights pioneers just waiting for an historian to stumble upon them.