Respectfully and faithfully yours. "Oh God," wailed one black woman at the back. "[33] "I'm not disappointed. 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 . "She was a bookworm," says Gloria Hardin, who went to school with Colvin and who still lives in King Hill. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. "There was no assault", Price said. Somehow, as Mrs. "She was not the first person to be arrested for violation of the bus seating ordinance," said J Mills Thornton, an author and academic. In court, Colvin opposed the segregation law by declaring herself not guilty. In the south, male ministers made up the overwhelming . 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. Raymond Colvin died in 1993 in New York of a heart attack at age 37. Raymond Colvin died in 1993 in New York of a heart attack, aged 37. "I remember during Easter one year, I was to get a pair of black patent shoes but you could only get them from the white stores, so my mother drew the outline of my feet on a brown paper bag in order to get the closest size, because we weren't allowed to go in the store to try them on.". 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." 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. Raymond Colvin, age 62, a resident of Ft. Deposit, AL, died April 13, 2013. Rosa didnt give me enough time to put in for a day off, she recalled. 2023 BBC. As civil rights attorney Fred Gray put it, Claudette gave all of us moral courage. ", But even as she inspired awe throughout the country, elders within Montgomery's black community began to doubt her suitability as a standard-bearer of the movement. Later, she would tell a reporter that she would sometimes attend the rallies at the churches. The record of her arrest and adjudication of delinquency was expunged by the district court in 2021, with the support of the district attorney for the county in which the charges were brought more than 66 years before. It is time for President Obama to award Colvin the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nations highest civilian honor, to recognize her sacrifice and passionate dedication to social justice. "So I told him I was not going to get up either. "I make up stories to convince them to stay in bed." I felt like Sojourner Truth was pushing down on one shoulder and Harriet Tubman was pushing down on the othersaying, 'Sit down girl!' Now 76 and retired, Colvin deserves her place in history. ", Montgomery's black establishment leaders decided they would have to wait for the right person. Her rhythm is simple and lifestyle frugal. Listen to Claudette Colvin's interview on Outlook on the BBC World Service. It is the story of Claudette Colvin, who was 15 when she waged her brave protest nine months before Parks did and has spent an eternity in Parkss shadow. While this does not happen by conspiracy, it is often facilitated by collusion. "There was segregation everywhere. Clubs called special meetings and discussed the event with some degree of alarm. And, from there, the short distance to sanctity: they called her "Saint Rosa", "an angel walking", "a heaven-sent messenger". Some people questioned if the father was a white male. "They put him on death row." Nor was Colvin the last to be passed over. [Mrs Hamilton] said she was not going to get up and that she had paid her fare and that she didn't feel like standing," recalls Colvin. Colvin was initially charged with disturbing the peace, violating the segregation laws, and battering and assaulting a police officer. The young Ms. Colvin was portrayed by actress Mariah Iman Wilson. But somewhere en route they mislaid the truth. The three other girls got up; Colvin stayed put. A sanitation worker, Mr Harris, got up, gave her his seat and got off the bus. "I recited Edgar Allan Poe, Annabel Lee, the characters in Midsummer Night's Dream, the Lord's Prayer and the 23rd Psalm." She resisted bus segregation nine months before Rosa Parks, . As an adult, she worked as a nurse's assistant in New . She spent the next decade going back and forth like a yo-yo between the two cities, she said. [28] Colvin stated she was branded a troublemaker by many in her community. Rosa Parks was thrown off the bus on a Thursday; by Friday, activists were distributing leaflets that highlighted her arrest as one of many, including those of Colvin and Mary Louise Smith: "Another Negro woman has been arrested and thrown in jail because she refused to get up out of her seat on the bus for a white person to sit down," they read. Sikora telephoned a startled Colvin and wrote an article about her. Read about our approach to external linking. A memorial service will be held at 11:00 AM, Saturday, March 4, 2023, at East Juliette . "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. The case, organized and filed in federal court by civil rights attorney Fred Gray, challenged city bus segregation in Montgomery as unconstitutional. When Ms Nesbitt, her 10th grade teacher, asked the class to write down what they wanted to be, she unfolded a piece of paper with Colvin's handwriting on it that said: "President of the United States. "It is he who decides which facts to give the floor and in what order or context. She made history at the young age of 15 by refusing to give up her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama to a white woman. [47], A re-enactment of Colvin's resistance is portrayed in a 2014 episode of the comedy TV series Drunk History about Montgomery, Alabama. On 2 March 1955, Colvin and her friends finished their classes and were let out of school early. Her parents were Mary Jane Gadson and C.P. "She had been tracked down by the zeitgeist - the spirit of the times." [28], The Montgomery bus boycott was able to unify the people of Montgomery, regardless of educational background or class. Meanwhile, Parks had been transformed from a politically-conscious activist to an upstanding, unfortunate Everywoman. "But when she was found guilty, her agonised sobs penetrated the atmosphere of the courthouse. 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. 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. In New York, Colvin gave birth to another son, Randy. A group of black civil rights leaders including Martin Luther King, Jr., was organized to discuss Colvin's arrest with the police commissioner. In the 2010s, Larkin arranged for a street to be named after Colvin. [5] Colvin did not receive the same attention as Parks for a number of reasons: she did not have "good hair", she was not fair-skinned, she was a teenager, she was pregnant. Ms. Colvin in New York on Feb. 5, 2009. [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.' Like Colvin, Parks was commuting home and was seated in the "coloured section" of the bus. Read about our approach to external linking. The once-quiet student was branded a troublemaker by some, and she had to drop out of college. By the time she got home, her parents already knew. [39] Later, Rev. Claudette Colvin (born September 5, 1939) is a retired American nurse aide who was a pioneer of the 1950s civil rights movement. "I respect my elders, but I don't respect what they did to Colvin," she says. She deserves our attention, our gratitude and a warm, bright spotlight all her own. "I was really afraid, because you just didn't know what white people might do at that time," says Colvin. [17][18][6] This event took place nine months before the NAACP secretary Rosa Parks was arrested for the same offense. "The white people were always seated at the front of the bus and the black people were seated at the back of the bus. [16], Through the trial Colvin was represented by Fred Gray, a lawyer for the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), which was organizing civil rights actions. 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. After her arrest and late appearance in the court hearing, she was more or less forgotten. The driver, James Blake, turned around and ordered the black passengers to go to the back of the bus, so that the whites could take their places. But Colvin told the driver she had paid her fare and that it was her constitutional right to remain where she was. ", To complicate matters, a pregnant black woman, Mrs Hamilton, got on and sat next to Colvin. "He asked us both to get up. Virgo Civil Rights Leader #2. This movement took place in the United States. She relied on the city's buses to get to and from school because her family did not own a car. 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. 1939- Claudette was born in Birmingham 1951- 22nd Amendment was put into place, limiting the presidential term of office . As well as the predictable teenage fantasy of "marrying a baseball player", she also had strong political convictions. She said, "They've already called it the Rosa Parks museum, so they've already made up their minds what the story is. Those who are aware of these distortions in the civil rights story are few. "[35], I dont think theres room for many more icons. The Montgomery bus boycott was then called off after a few months. 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. Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page. Colvin was the first person to be arrested for challenging Montgomery's bus segregation policies, so her story made a few local papers - but nine months later, the same act of defiance by Rosa Parks was reported all over the world. Moreover, she was not the first person to take a stand by keeping her seat and challenging the system. I started protecting my crotch. Colvin was also very dark-skinned, which put her at the bottom of the social pile within the black community - in the pigmentocracy of the South at the time, and even today, while whites discriminated against blacks on grounds of skin colour, the black community discriminated against each other in terms of skin shade. Reeves was a teenage grocery delivery boy who was found having sex with a white woman. Claudette Colvin, a civil rights pioneer who in March 1955, at the age of 15, was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a White person on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus, is seeking to get her . It was a case of 'bourgey' blacks looking down on the working-class blacks. [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. But what I do remember is when they asked me to stick my arms out the window and that's when they handcuffed me," Colvin says. Why has Claudette Colvin been denied her place in history? "It is the second time since the Claudette Colvin case that a Negro woman has been arrested for the same thing.". A 15-year-old high school student at the time, Colvin got fed up and refused to move even before Parks. Phillip Hoose also wrote about her in the young adult biography Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice. At the time, Parks was a seamstress in a local department store but was also a secretary of the Montgomery chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP). In this respect, the civil rights movement in Montgomery moved fast. She shops with her workmates and watches action movies on video. Colvin says that after Supreme Court made its decision, things slowly began to change. Colvin gave birth to her first son Raymond Jun 5, 1956. 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