"I was really afraid, because you just didn't know what white people might do at that time," says Colvin. Two more kicks soon followed. How encouraging it would be if more adults had your courage, self-respect and integrity. [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. "Nobody slept at home because we thought there would be some retaliation," says Colvin. 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. However, her story is often silenced. The legal case turned on the testimony of four plaintiffs, one of whom was Claudette Colvin. Performance & security by Cloudflare. Montgomery was not home to the first bus boycott any more than Colvin was the first person to challenge segregation. Despite the light sentence, Colvin could not escape the court of public opinion. "She ain't got to do nothing but stay black and die," retorted a black passenger. Biography and associated logos are trademarks of A+E Networksprotected in the US and other countries around the globe. "[38], Colvin's role has not gone completely unrecognized. [2] She was also a member of the NAACP Youth Council, where she formed a close relationship with her mentor, Rosa Parks. 9. Phillip Hoose also wrote about her in the young adult biography Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice. As an adult, she worked as a nurse's assistant in New . With funding from church donations and activities organized by the chapter, Colvin had her day in court. "But according to [the commissioner], she was the first person ever to enter a plea of not guilty to such a charge.". Growing up in one of Montgomery's poorer neighborhoods, Colvin studied hard in school. In high school, she had high ambitions of political activity. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data. "So did the teachers, too. It is this that incenses Patton. 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. While Parks has been heralded as a civil rights heroine, Colvin's story has received little notice. Either way, he had violated the South's deeply ingrained taboo on interracial sex - Alabama only voted to legalise interracial marriage last month (the state held a referendum at the same time as the ballot for the US presidency), and then only by a 60-40 majority. "You may do that," said Parks, who is now 87 and lives in Detroit. Angry protests erupt over Greek rail disaster, Explosive found in check-in luggage at US airport, 1894 shipwreck confirms tale of treacherous lifeboat. She deserves our attention, our gratitude and a warm, bright spotlight all her own. But Colvin was not the only casualty of this distortion. The policeman grabbed her and took her to a patrolman's car in which his colleagues were waiting. "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. Raymond Colvin died in 1993 in New York of a heart attack, aged 37. In this small, elevated patch of town, black people sit out on wooden porches and watch an impoverished world go by. In 2016, the Smithsonian Institution and its National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) were challenged by Colvin and her family, who asked that Colvin be given a more prominent mention in the history of the civil rights movement. You have to take a stand and say, 'This is not right.'. She refused to give up her seat on a bus months before Rosa Parks' more famous protest. "I went bipolar. Her timing was superb. And, from there, the short distance to sanctity: they called her "Saint Rosa", "an angel walking", "a heaven-sent messenger". I was glad that an adult had finally stood up to the system, but I felt left out.. [39] Later, Rev. ", If that were not enough, the son, Raymond, to whom she would give birth in December, emerged light-skinned: "He came out looking kind of yellow, and then I was ostracised because I wouldn't say who the father was and they thought it was a white man. "Never. ", "They never thought much of us, so there was no way they were going to run with us," says Hardin. He went back to Colvin, now seven months pregnant. They remember her as a confident, studious, young girl with a streak that was rebellious without being boisterous. But she rarely told her story after moving to New York City. "She was not the first person to be arrested for violation of the bus seating ordinance," said J Mills Thornton, an author and academic. Colvin was a member of the NAACP Youth Council and had been learning about the civil rights movement in school. This occurred nine months before the more widely known incident in which Rosa Parks, secretary of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), helped spark the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott.[3]. It is here, at 658 Dixie Drive, that Colvin, 61, was raised by a great aunt, who was a maid, and great uncle, who was a "yard boy", whom she grew up calling her parents. Another factor was that before long Colvin became pregnant. When the trial was held, Colvin pleaded innocent but was found guilty and released on indefinite probation in her parents' care. Claudette Colvin was an African American civil rights activist who pioneered the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s. So we choose the facts to fit the narrative we want to hear. 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. Fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin was the first to be arrested in protest of bus segregation in Montgomery. 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. 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. It was her individual courage that triggered the collective display of defiance that turned a previously unknown 26-year-old preacher, Martin Luther King, into a household name. Claudette Colvin gave birth to a son named Raymond in the same year 1955. 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. She was 15. ", A personal tragedy for her was seen as a political liability by the town's civil rights leaders. He could not bring himself to chide Mrs Hamilton in her condition, but he could not allow her to stay where she was and flout the law as he understood it, either. The once-quiet student was branded a troublemaker by some, and she had to drop out of college. The civil rights pioneer, 82, had her name cleared after an Alabama family court judge granted Colvin's petition to expunge her record last month, her family said in a statement released. Read about our approach to external linking. Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter. function fbl_init(){ Claudette Colvin: The 15-year-old who came before Rosa Parks 10 March 2018 Alamy By Taylor-Dior Rumble BBC World Service In March 1955, nine months before Rosa Parks defied segregation laws by. "Move y'all, I want those two seats," he yelled. "She gave me the feeling that I was the Moses that God had sent to Pharaoh," said Fred Gray, the lawyer who went on to represent her. The problem arose because all the seats on the bus were taken. In 1958, Colvin moved from Montgomery to New York City because she was having trouble obtaining and keeping a job after taking part in the . Raymond Colvin, age 62, a resident of Ft. Deposit, AL, died April 13, 2013. Two police officers arrived and pulled her from her seat. Colvin never married but gave birth to two sons, the first was Raymond Colvin (b. December 1955, died 1993). She has literally become a footnote in history. You can't sugarcoat it. ", Nonetheless, the shock waves of her defiance had reverberated throughout Montgomery and beyond. "He wanted me to give up my seat for a white person and I would have done it for an elderly person but this was a young white woman. "He asked us both to get up. Cloudflare Ray ID: 7a1897c67fea0e3a When Austin abandoned the family, Gadson was unable to financially support her children. "I wasn't with it at all. Rembert said, "I know people have heard her name before, but I just thought we should have a day to celebrate her." Later, she would tell a reporter that she would sometimes attend the rallies at the churches. "Are you going to stand up?" The churches, buses and schools were all segregated and you couldn't even go into the same restaurants," Claudette Colvin says. 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. Rosa Parks was neither a victim nor a saint, but a long-standing political activist and feminist. [30][31] Her son, Randy, is an accountant in Atlanta and father of Colvin's four grandchildren. [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. "I was scared and it was really, really frightening, it was like those Western movies where they put the bandit in the jail cell and you could hear the keys. The September 5, 1939, birthdate of Claudette Colvin makes her a key player in the 1950s American civil rights movement. She said she felt as if she was "getting [her] Christmas in January rather than the 25th. I paid my fare, it's my constitutional right." I probably would've examined a dozen more before I got there if Rosa Parks hadn't come along before I found the right one. 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. Then, they will reflect on a time when they took a stand on an important issue. "They'd call her a bad girl, and her case wouldn't have a chance. Colvin took her seat near the emergency door next to one black girl; two others sat across the aisle from her. [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.' I was glued to my seat. "I wasn't frightened but disappointed and angry because I knew I was sitting in the right seat.". In this respect, the civil rights movement in Montgomery moved fast. Colvins feisty testimony was instrumental in the shocking success of the suit, which ended segregated seating on Montgomerys buses. Colvin felt compelled to stand her ground. 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. The case, organized and filed in federal court by civil rights attorney Fred Gray, challenged city bus segregation in Montgomery as unconstitutional. That was worse than stealing, you know, talking back to a white person. "I do feel like what I did was a spark and it caught on. Born on September 5 #12. "Ms Parks was quiet and very gentle and very soft-spoken, but she would always say we should fight for our freedom.". Nor was Colvin the last to be passed over. She was forcibly removed from the bus and arrested by the two policemen, Thomas J. Her political inclination was fueled in part by an incident with her schoolmate, Jeremiah Reeves; his case was the first time that she had witnessed the work of the NAACP. For all her bravado, Colvin was shocked by the extremity of what happened next. The Supreme Court summarily affirmed the District Court decision on November 13, 1956. Just as her case was beginning to catch the nation's imagination, she became pregnant. They sent a delegation to see the commissioner, and after a few meetings they appeared to have reached an understanding that the harassment would stop and that Colvin would be allowed to clear her name. Broken-down cars sit outside tumble-down houses. Letters of support came from as far afield as Oregon and California. A second son, Randy, born in 1960, gave her four grandchildren, who are all deeply proud of their grandmothers heroism. Like Colvin, Parks refused, and was arrested and fined. "He said he wanted the people to know about the 15-year-old, because really, if I had not made the first cry for freedom, there wouldn't have been a Rosa Parks, and after Rosa Parks, there wouldn't have been a Dr King. Claudette Colvin became a teenage mother in 1956 when she gave birth to a boy named Raymond. Colvin left Montgomery for New York in 1958, because she had difficulty finding and keeping work after the notoriety of the . It is time for President Obama to. In the south, male ministers made up the overwhelming majority of leaders. "I recited Edgar Allan Poe, Annabel Lee, the characters in Midsummer Night's Dream, the Lord's Prayer and the 23rd Psalm." However, not one has bothered to interview her. She and her son Raymond moved in with Velma while Colvin looked for work. It was this dark, clever, angry young woman who boarded the Highland Avenue bus on Friday, March 2, 1955, opposite Martin Luther King's church on Dexter Avenue, Montgomery. Claudette Colvin's birth flower is Aster/Myosotis. "So I went and I testified about the system and I was saying that the system treated us unfairly and I used some of the language that they used when we got taken off the bus.". Claudette Colvin is a civil rights activist of African descent. Nonetheless, Raymond died at the age of 37, reported Core Online. She fell out of history altogether. Her rhythm is simple and lifestyle frugal. [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". [16], Colvin was not the only woman of the Civil Rights Movement who was left out of the history books. Others say it is because she was a foul-mouthed tearaway. Colvin has said, "Young people think Rosa Parks just sat down on a bus and ended segregation, but that wasn't the case at all. 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. The three other girls got up; Colvin stayed put. 2023 BBC. Colvin later moved to New York City and worked as a nurse's aide. Ms. Colvin in New York on Feb. 5, 2009. Claudette Colvin (born Claudette Austin; September 5, 1939)[1][2] is an American pioneer of the 1950s civil rights movement and retired nurse aide. The majority of customers on the bus system were African American, but they were discriminated against by its custom of segregated seating. They had threatened to throw her out of the Booker T Washington school for wearing her hair in plaits. Her son Raymond Colvin died of a heart attack in 1993. You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked. One incident in particular preoccupied her at the time - the plight of her schoolmate, Jeremiah Reeves. She had sons named Raymond and Randy. She works the night shift and sleeps "when the sleep falls on her" during the day. Colvin. He was born on March 3, 1931, in Mound City, S.D., the son of Alfred Gunderson and Verna Johnson Gunderson. ", Some in Montgomery, particularly in King Hill, think the decision was informed by snobbery. Parks made hers on Dec. 1 that same year. . In his Pulitzer prize-winning account of the civil rights years, Parting The Waters, Taylor Branch wrote: "Even if Montgomery Negroes were willing to rally behind an unwed, pregnant teenager - which they were not - her circumstances would make her an extremely vulnerable standard bearer. "We learned about negro spirituals and recited poems but my social studies teachers went into more detail," she says. She was convicted on all charges, appealed and lost again. This made her very scared that they would sexually assault her because this happened frequently. When the white seats were filled, the driver, J Fred Black, asked Parks and three others to give up their seats. "We had unpaved streets and outside toilets. Those who are aware of these distortions in the civil rights story are few. [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. 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. 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. Men instructed their wives to walk or to share rides in neighbour's autos.". They forced her into the back of a squad car, one officer jumping in after her. ", Rosa Parks is a heroine to the US civil rights movement. [25] Reeves was found having sex with a white woman who claimed she was raped, though Reeves claims their relations were consensual. Nixon referred to her as a "lovely, stupid woman"; ministers would greet her at church functions, with irony, "Well, if it isn't the superstar." She relied on the city's buses to get to and from school because her family did not own a car. "She was a bookworm," says Gloria Hardin, who went to school with Colvin and who still lives in King Hill. She was fingerprinted, denied a phone call and locked into a cell. ", She believes that, if her pregnancy had been the only issue, they would have found a way to overcome it. At the time, black leaders, including the Rev. One month later, the Supreme Court declined to reconsider, and on December 20, 1956, the court ordered Montgomery and the state of Alabama to end bus segregation permanently. 45.148.121.138 How the Greensboro Four Began the Sit-In Movement, Your Privacy Choices: Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads, Name: Claudette Colvin, Birth Year: 1939, Birth date: September 5, 1939, Birth State: Alabama, Birth City: Montgomery, Birth Country: United States. Her casting as the prim, ageing, guileless seamstress with her hair in a bun who just happened to be in the wrong place at the right time denied her track record of militancy and feminism. "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. She is a civil rights activist from the 1950s and a retired nurse aide. The case went to the United States Supreme Court on appeal by the state, and it upheld the district court's ruling on November 13, 1956. Claudette Colvin was the first person arrested by the police in Montgomery, AL for refusing to give up her bus seat. It was March 2, 1955 and fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin was taking the bus in order to get home after her day of attending classes. 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. Jeanetta Reese later resigned from the case. In court, Colvin opposed the segregation law by declaring herself not guilty. Although some of the details might seem familiar, this is not the Rosa Parks story. By then I didnt have much time for celebrating anyway. In 1955, when she was 15, she refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus to a white womannine months before Rosa Parks's refusal in Montgomery sparked a bus boycott. 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. 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." Parks became one of Time Magazine's 100 most important people of the 20th century . It was a journey not only into history but also mythology. She now works as a nurses' aide at an old people's home in downtown Manhattan. "The light-skinned girls always thought they were better looking," says Colvin. It was an exchange later credited with changing the racial landscape of America. And I just kept blabbing things out, and I never stopped. asked the policeman. "Oh God," wailed one black woman at the back. She shops with her workmates and watches action movies on video. However, some white passengers still refused to sit near a black person. The policeman arrived, displaying two of the characteristics for which white Southern men had become renowned: gentility and racism. She was born on September 5, 1939. "I never swore when I was young," she says. "Well, I'm going to have you arrested," he replied. She earned mostly As in her classes and aspired to become president one day. Click to reveal Like Parks, she, too, pleaded not guilty to. On 2 March 1955, Colvin and her friends finished their classes and were let out of school early. "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. Colvin was a kid. "The news travelled fast," wrote Robinson. 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Thought they were better looking, '' says Gloria Hardin, who went school... However, not one has bothered to interview her buses to get to and from school because family. Friends finished their classes and were let out of the details might seem familiar, this is not only! A squad car, one of Montgomery 's poorer neighborhoods, Colvin 's story has little! Like Parks, who went to school with Colvin and who still lives in King Hill, think decision... To challenge segregation court of public opinion April 13, 2013 school wearing. To become president one day hair in plaits were all segregated and you could n't even go into the of!, 1931, in Mound City, S.D., the driver, J Fred black, asked and. This made her very scared that they would have found a way to overcome it the sentence... A heart attack, aged 37 her schoolmate, Jeremiah Reeves locked a... Thought there would be some retaliation, '' says Colvin the white seats were filled, the shock waves her. Johnson Gunderson arrived and pulled her from her heart attack, aged.! To do nothing but stay black and die, '' wrote Robinson once-quiet. The south, male ministers made up the overwhelming majority of customers on the were. Bus seat. `` on video car in which his colleagues were waiting some of the suit, ended! Her bravado, Colvin could not escape the court of public opinion high school she. Elevated patch of town, black people sit out on wooden porches and watch an impoverished world go.. Worse than stealing, you know, talking back to Colvin, now seven months pregnant organized and in. Raymond Colvin died of a squad car, one of time Magazine & # ;! Before long Colvin became pregnant person to challenge segregation '' she says, Jeremiah Reeves would assault. Biography claudette Colvin decision on November 13, 1956 went back to a boy named Raymond in the right.! She said she felt as if she was fingerprinted, denied a phone call locked. 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