Major movements and revolutions in history are marked by big events, but are always comprised of smaller events which often go overlooked. Such is the story of Claudette Colvin. Her place in the civil rights movement could have been one of the most prominent ones, yet her name and contributions were minimized and all but hidden away.
Claudette Colvin’s story begins as a young girl growing up in segregated Montgomery, Alabama. She knew firsthand of the humiliation and violence that could be wrought on black people if they did not toe the line of Jim Crow. Her friend had been put to death for an innocent flirtatious gesture toward a white girl. Colvin, a studious child, was determined to get the best education possible, become a lawyer, and fight for civil rights.
On March 2, 1955, however, Colvin’s life changed forever. The fifteen year old had boarded a segregated, city bus after school to go home, her mind filled with what she’d been learning during Negro History Week. At one stop several white passengers got on, and the bus driver ordered her and three others to move, though there were other seats available for the white passengers. Three got up, Colvin stayed. As she says, “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.” Her refusal led to her arrest, taken off the bus by two police officers whose behavior toward Colvin had her fearing she might be raped. Charged with violating segregation laws, misconduct and resisting arrest, her conviction and subsequent probation left Colvin feeling she would never get the education and profession she so desired.
The African American community was outraged, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. came to Montgomery to fight her arrest, and leaders in the civil rights movement sought a way to end bus segregation. They looked at Claudette Colvin as a potential “face” of the movement. As Colvin’s friend Reverend Johnson told her, “Everyone prays for freedom. We’ve all been praying and praying. But you’re different – you want your answer the next morning. And I think you’ve just brought the revolution to Montgomery.” However, she was deemed too young and her complexion too dark to be the right fit. Then she became pregnant (by a man whose name Colvin will not disclose), and that was that.
A boycott was considered as a way to fight segregation, but it was nine months before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat that the boycott was executed. Parks was educated, older, lighter-skinned, and a seamstress – perfect. Although her refusal to move was not directly planned, she was part of the civil rights movement She had been trained for civil disobedience by the NAACP.
Claudette Colvin’s role was not over. She and three other young women had been harassed in 1955, and a lawsuit was filed in 1956 to challenge the constitutionality of segregated buses. It was called Browder v. Gayle, and went all the way to the Supreme Court. It was decided that Montgomery’s bus segregation was in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was a huge victory for civil rights.
Rather than seeing her name aligned with Rosa Parks (whose portrait is on this website) for her strength and courage in defying segregation, Claudette Colvin has been all but forgotten until recently. Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice, by Philip Hoose, tells her story, as does a one-woman performance titled Rage is Not a 1-Day Thing!, and Colvin herself is beginning to speak about her remarkable story.
