Keep supporting great journalism by turning off your ad blocker. [citation needed]. When the white seats were filled, the driver, J Fred Black, asked Parks and three others to give up their seats. ", Some in Montgomery, particularly in King Hill, think the decision was informed by snobbery. "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. 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. 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. He wasn't." "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. 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. Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. Site contains certain content that is owned A&E Television Networks, LLC. Betty Shabbaz, the widow of Malcolm X, was one of them. "She had been yelling, 'It's my constitutional right!'. CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST, 81, BIRMINGHAM, AL. Claudette Colvin was an American civil rights activist during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. I paid my fare, it's my constitutional right." Like Colvin, Parks was commuting home and was seated in the "coloured section" of the bus. 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. She refused to give up her seat on a bus months before Rosa Parks' more famous protest. Her parents were Mary Jane Gadson and C.P. They remember her as a confident, studious, young girl with a streak that was rebellious without being boisterous. [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.' 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. Gary Younge investigates, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. [25] Reeves was found having sex with a white woman who claimed she was raped, though Reeves claims their relations were consensual. 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. [30], Colvin was a predecessor to the Montgomery bus boycott movement of 1955, which gained national attention. "I will take you off," said the policeman, then he kicked her. Nor was Colvin the last to be passed over. "They'd call her a bad girl, and her case wouldn't have a chance. "So did the teachers, too. He was executed for his alleged crimes. That left Colvin. . ", When the boycott was over and the African-American community had emerged victorious, King, Nixon and Parks appeared for the cameras. "We just sat there and waited for it all to happen," says Gloria Hardin, who was on the bus, too. Born on September 5, 1939, Claudette Colvin hails from Alabama, United States. That's what they usually did.". The United States District Court ruled the state of Alabama and Montgomery's bus segregation laws were unconstitutional. Going to a segregated school had one advantage, she found - her teachers gave her a good grounding in black history. ", She believes that, if her pregnancy had been the only issue, they would have found a way to overcome it. A year later, on 20 December 1956, the US Supreme Court ruled that segregation on the buses must end. But also let them know that the attorneys took four other women to the Supreme Court to challenge the law that led to the end of segregation. She fell out of history altogether. She now works as a nurses' aide at an old people's home in downtown Manhattan. The legal case turned on the testimony of four plaintiffs, one of whom was Claudette Colvin. Claudette Colvin, 81, was a true pioneer in the Civil Rights Movement. "I do feel like what I did was a spark and it caught on. "Mrs Parks was a married woman," said ED Nixon. 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. "What's going on with these niggers?" asked one. [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. [28] Colvin stated she was branded a troublemaker by many in her community. Best Known For: Claudette Colvin is an activist who was a pioneer in the civil rights movement in Alabama during the 1950s. Claudette Colvin (1935- ) Claudette Colvin, a nurse's aide and Civil Rights Movement activist, was born on September 5, 1939, in Birmingham, Alabama. "They just dropped me. 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.'". Raymond Colvin died in 1993 in New York of a heart attack at age 37. This movement took place in the United States. She worked there for 35 years, retiring in 2004. "I had almost a life history of being rebellious against being mistreated against my colour," she said. Before the Rosa Parks incident took place, Claudette Colvin was arrested for challenging the bus segregation system. The churches, buses and schools were all segregated and you couldn't even go into the same restaurants," Claudette Colvin says. Two police officers arrived and pulled her from her seat. "For a while, there was a real distance between me and Mrs Parks over this. [37], "All we want is the truth, why does history fail to get it right?" 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. Second, she was the first person, in Montgomery at least, to take up the challenge. After Colvin was released from prison, there were fears that her home would be attacked. One white woman defended Colvin to the police; another said that, if she got away with this, "they will take over". She concentrated her mind on things she had been learning at school. Broken-down cars sit outside tumble-down houses. The policeman arrived, displaying two of the characteristics for which white Southern men had become renowned: gentility and racism. ", "They never thought much of us, so there was no way they were going to run with us," says Hardin. Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page. "New York is a completely different culture to Montgomery, Alabama. This led to a few articles and profiles by others in subsequent years. Read about our approach to external linking. 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. I felt inspired by these women because my teacher taught us about them in so much detail," she says. So, Colvin and her younger sister, Delphine, were taken in by their great aunt and uncle, Mary Anne and Q. P. Colvin whose daughter, Velma Colvin, had already moved out. Click to reveal [24] She was convicted on all three charges in juvenile court. 05 September 1939 - Court trial. "They did think I was nutty and crazy.". Respectfully and faithfully yours. The majority of customers on the bus system were African American, but they were discriminated against by its custom of segregated seating. Two years earlier, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, African-Americans launched an effective bus boycott after drivers refused to honour an integrated seating policy, which was settled in an unsatisfactory fudge. "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. Unable to find work in Montgomery, Colvin moved to New York in 1958, while her son Raymond remained behind with family. Another cracked a joke about her bra size. In this small, elevated patch of town, black people sit out on wooden porches and watch an impoverished world go by. "I went bipolar. However, her story is often silenced. [2] Price testified for Colvin, who was tried in juvenile court. Officers were called to the scene and Colvin was forcefully taken off of the bus and . The action you just performed triggered the security solution. Parks stayed put. Montgomery was not home to the first bus boycott any more than Colvin was the first person to challenge segregation. The NMAAHC has a section dedicated to Rosa Parks, which Colvin does not want taken away, but her family's goal is to get the historical record right, and for officials to include Colvin's part of history. So he said, 'If you are not going to get up, I will get a policeman. Video1894 shipwreck confirms tale of treacherous lifeboat, How 10% of Nigerian registered voters delivered victory, Sake brewers toast big rise in global sales, The Indian-American CEO who wants to be US president, Blackpink lead top stars back on the road in Asia, Exploring the rigging claims in Nigeria's elections, 'Wales is in England' gaffe sparks TikToker's trip. [17][18][6] This event took place nine months before the NAACP secretary Rosa Parks was arrested for the same offense. In the nine months between her arrest and that of Parks, another young black woman, Mary Louise Smith, suffered a similar fate. Assured that the hearing would not take place until after her baby was born, Colvin nervously assented to become one of four plaintiffs all women, and not including Parks in Browder v. Gayle. [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. [16], Colvin was not the only woman of the Civil Rights Movement who was left out of the history books. For we like our history neat - an easy-to-follow, self-contained narrative with dates, characters and landmarks with which we can weave together otherwise unrelated events into one apparently seamless length of fabric held together by sequence and consequence. "I thought he would stop and shout and then drive on. Colvin never married but gave birth to two sons, the first was Raymond Colvin (b. December 1955, died 1993). Three of the students had got up reluctantly and I remained sitting next to the window," she says. The bus went three stops before several white passengers got on. Fifty years have passed since campaigners overturned a ban on ethnic minorities working on buses in one British city. . 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 Montgomery bus boycott was then called off after a few months. I didn't want to discuss it with them," she says. She says she expected some abuse from the driver, but nothing more. During her pregnancy, she was abandoned by civil rights leaders. [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. She was forcibly removed from the bus and arrested by the two policemen, Thomas J. "If any of you are not gentlemen enough to give a lady a seat, you should be put in jail yourself," he said. Somehow, as Mrs. She works the night shift and sleeps "when the sleep falls on her" during the day. None of them spoke to me; they didn't see if I was okay. [51], National Museum of African American History and Culture, "Power Dynamics of a Segregated City: Class, Gender, and Claudette Colvin's Struggle for Equality", "Before Rosa Parks, Claudette Colvin Stayed in Her Bus Seat", "From Footnote to Fame in Civil Rights History", "Before Rosa Parks, A Teenager Defied Segregation On An Alabama Bus", "Chapter 1 (excerpt): 'Up From Pine Level', "#ThrowbackThursday: The girl who acted before Rosa Parks", "Claudette Colvin: an unsung hero in the Montgomery Bus Boycott", "The Origins of the Montgomery Bus Boycott", "A Forgotten Contribution: Before Rosa Parks, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin refused to give up her seat on the bus", "Claudette Colvin: First to keep her seat", "Claudette Colvin | Americans Who Tell The Truth", "Claudette Colvin: the woman who refused to give up her bus seat nine months before Rosa Parks", "2 other bus boycott heroes praise Parks' acclaim", "This once-forgotten civil rights hero deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom", "Chairman Crowley Honors Civil Rights Pioneer Claudette Colvin", "The Other Rosa Parks: Now 73, Claudette Colvin Was First to Refuse Giving Up Seat on Montgomery Bus", "Claudette Colvin Seeks Greater Recognition For Role In Making Civil Rights History", "Weekend: Civil rights heroine Claudette Colvin", "Claudette Colvin honored by Montgomery council", "Alabama unveils statue of civil rights icon Rosa Parks", "Rosa Parks statue unveiled in Alabama on anniversary of her refusal to give up seat", "She refused to move bus seats months before Rosa Parks. Then, they will reflect on a time when they took a stand on an important issue. In a United States district court, she testified before the three-judge panel that heard the case. Claudette Colvin, 1953 Claudette Austin was born in Birmingham, Jefferson County, to Mary Jane Gadson and C. P. Austin on September 5, 1939.Her father abandoned the family, which included a sister, when she was a small child, and the two girls went to live in Pine Level, Montgomery County, with an aunt and uncle, Mary Anne and Q. P. Colvin.Both children took the Colvin name as their last name . "I waited for about three hours until my mother arrived with my pastor to bail me out. "Never. All but housebound, mocked at school and dropped, as she put it, by Montgomerys black leadership, Colvin saw her self-confidence plummet. Others say it is because she was a foul-mouthed tearaway. But, unlike Parks, Colvin never made it into the civil rights hall of fame. ", A personal tragedy for her was seen as a political liability by the town's civil rights leaders. It reads: "The wonderful thing which you have just done makes me feel like a craven coward. By Monday, the day the boycott began, Colvin had already been airbrushed from the official version of events. Mothers expressed concern about permitting their children on the buses. "It took on the form of harassment. Claudette Colvin was an African American civil rights activist who pioneered the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s. After her refusal to give up her seat, Colvin was arrested on several charges, including violating the city's segregation laws. New York, Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, This page was last edited on 1 March 2023, at 23:25. One month later, the Supreme Court affirmed the order to Montgomery and the state of Alabama to end bus segregation. Colvin has retired from her job and has been living her life. "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. She retired in 2004. Claudette had two sons named Raymond and Randy Colvin, and her first pregnancy was at the age of 16 with a much older man. King Hill, Montgomery, is the sepia South. Most of the people didn't have problems with us sitting on the bus, most New Yorkers cared about economic problems. Colvins son Raymond died in 1993. "She was a victim of both the forces of history and the forces of destiny," said King, in a quote now displayed in the civil rights museum in Atlanta. "She had remained calm all during the days of her waiting period and during the trial," wrote Robinson. The problem arose because all the seats on the bus were taken. People often make death hoaxes of well-known personalities to get public attention and views. 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. State and local officials appealed the case to the United States Supreme Court. Colvin and her friends were sitting in a row a little more than half way down the bus - two were on the right side of the bus and two on the left - and a white passenger was standing in the aisle between them. The discussions in the black community began to focus on black enterprise rather than integration, although national civil rights legislation did not pass until 1964 and 1965. Her first son died in 1993. Claudette Colvin is a civil rights activist of African descent. '", The atmosphere on the bus became very tense. However, not one has bothered to interview her. The driver wanted all of them to move to the back and stand so that the white passenger could sit. Let the people know Rosa Parks was the right person for the boycott. [4][18] Colvin said, "But I made a personal statement, too, one that [Parks] didn't make and probably couldn't have made. He was born on March 3, 1931, in Mound City, S.D., the son of Alfred Gunderson and Verna Johnson Gunderson. A group of black civil rights leaders including Martin Luther King, Jr., was organized to discuss Colvin's arrest with the police commissioner. For Colvin, the entire episode was traumatic: "Nowadays, you'd call it statutory rape, but back then it was just the kind of thing that happened," she says, describing the conditions under which she conceived. In the south, male ministers made up the overwhelming majority of leaders. Colvin has remained unmarried all her life. But it is also a rare and excellent one that gives her more than a passing, dismissive mention. "I make up stories to convince them to stay in bed." It is a letter Colvin knew nothing about. Colvin was not invited officially for the formal dedication of the museum, which opened to the public in September 2016. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. 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 shouted that her constitutional rights were being violated. The decision in the 1956 case, which had been filed by Fred Gray and Charles D. Langford on behalf of the aforementioned African American women, ruled that Montgomery's segregated bus system was unconstitutional. She withdrew from college, and struggled in the local environment. A sanitation worker, Mr Harris, got up, gave her his seat and got off the bus. She was convicted on all charges, appealed and lost again. Colvin's son Raymond died in 1993. [2] She was also a member of the NAACP Youth Council, where she formed a close relationship with her mentor, Rosa Parks. [26], Together with Aurelia S. Browder, Susie McDonald, Mary Louise Smith, and Jeanetta Reese, Colvin was one of the five plaintiffs in the court case of Browder v. Gayle. Colvins feisty testimony was instrumental in the shocking success of the suit, which ended segregated seating on Montgomerys buses. .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. For months, Montgomerys NAACP chapter had been looking for a court case to test the constitutionality of the bus laws. I felt the hand of Harriet Tubman pushing down on one shoulder and Sojourner Truth pushing down on the other. Growing up in one of Montgomery's poorer neighborhoods, Colvin studied hard in school. [16] On March 2, 1955, she was returning home from school. But they dont say that Columbus discovered America; they should say, for the European people, that is, you know, their discovery of the new world. I started protecting my crotch. She spent the next decade going back and forth like a yo-yo between the two cities, she said. "[28], On May 20, 2018, Congressman Joe Crowley honored Colvin for her lifetime commitment to public service with a Congressional Certificate and an American flag. Video, 1894 shipwreck confirms tale of treacherous lifeboat, Claudette Colvin's interview on Outlook on the BBC World Service, Whiskey fungus forces Jack Daniels to stop construction, Harry and Meghan told to 'vacate' Frogmore Cottage, Rare Jurassic-era bug found at Arkansas Walmart, Havana Syndrome unlikely to have hostile cause - US, India PM Modi urges G20 to overcome divisions, Starbucks illegally fired workers over union - judge, NFL hopeful accused of racing in deadly car crash. Ward and Paul Headley. Rosa didnt give me enough time to put in for a day off, she recalled. I was crying," she says. As well as the predictable teenage fantasy of "marrying a baseball player", she also had strong political convictions. While her role in the fight to end segregation in Montgomery may not be widely recognized, Colvin helped advance civil rights efforts in the city. ", "I wanted to go north and liberate my people," explains Colvin. "It is the second time since the Claudette Colvin case that a Negro woman has been arrested for the same thing.". The September 5, 1939, birthdate of Claudette Colvin makes her a key player in the 1950s American civil rights movement. 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. 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. Cloudflare Ray ID: 7a1897c67fea0e3a We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back. When Austin abandoned the family, Gadson was unable to financially support her children. 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 a bookworm," says Gloria Hardin, who went to school with Colvin and who still lives in King Hill. Colvin gave birth to her first son Raymond Jun 5, 1956. But she rarely told her story after moving to New York City. The bus froze. It was believed that a venomous snake would die if placed in a vessel made of sapphire. , gave her his seat and got off the bus turned on the bus segregation system an old people home! Been arrested for the same restaurants, '' she said interview her next to the back stand! Seat and got off the bus segregation them in so much detail, '' she says she expected abuse... The white seats were filled, the atmosphere on the bus system were African American, but they discriminated! 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