If you don’t remember the name Claudette Colvin, that may be because you never heard it. That her story (and those of countless others) is not more well-known serves as a sobering reminder that history is a matter of curation.
Colvin, now 84, was a teenager when, on March 2, 1955, she refused to give up her seat to a white woman while riding a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. That act of defiance took place nine months before Rosa Parks made news for not ceding her seat to a white man.
Colvin was 15 years old at the time. She was coming back from a trip downtown with her friends, and they’d boarded the bus across the street from the church where Martin Luther King Jr. would later give sermons.
Colvin, now 84, was a teenager when, on March 2, 1955, she refused to give up her seat to a white woman while riding a bus in Montgomery, Alabama.
As more white passengers boarded, her Black peers got up to move. At that time, Colvin said, Black people weren’t allowed to sit directly across from white people. But she remained seated.
She recalls a sign that said “Coloreds to the rear. Whites to the front.”
“I wasn’t breaking any segregation laws,” Colvin said.
The bus driver called over a traffic cop to confront Colvin about why she hadn’t switched seats. “He asked why I remained seated. And I said, ‘Because I paid my fare and it’s my constitutional right.’” After it was decided the patrolman had no authority in the matter, other officers were called to the scene.
“They knocked the books out of my lap. That’s when they manhandled me and put me in the patrol car.”
She was taken to a city jail, rather than a juvenile detention center, where she was held for a couple of hours.
Colvin’s experience had all the ingredients of a movement in the making, but the Montgomery NAACP — which changed its name to the Montgomery Improvement Association — decided not to advocate on Colvin’s behalf. Later that year, the organization did rally around…
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