In 1960, she gave birth to her second son, Randy. [44], Former US Poet Laureate Rita Dove memorialized Colvin in her poem "Claudette Colvin Goes To Work",[45] published in her 1999 book On the Bus with Rosa Parks; folk singer John McCutcheon turned this poem into a song, which was first publicly performed in Charlottesville, Virginia's Paramount Theater in 2006. After training, she landed a job as a nurses aide in a Catholic hospital in Manhattan. Reeves was a teenage grocery delivery boy who was found having sex with a white woman. He went back to Colvin, now seven months pregnant. Check below for more deets about Claudette Colvin. Cloudflare Ray ID: 7a1897c67fea0e3a 83 Year Old #3. "Ms Parks was quiet and very gentle and very soft-spoken, but she would always say we should fight for our freedom.". By the time she got home, her parents already knew. Some have tried to change that. [2][10] When Colvin was eight years old, the Colvins moved to King Hill, a poor black neighborhood in Montgomery where she spent the rest of her childhood. Clubs called special meetings and discussed the event with some degree of alarm. ", Not so Colvin. The death news of Colvin, which has been going on the Internet, is untrue; she is alive and is 83. Rita Dove penned the poem "Claudette Colvin Goes to Work," which later became a song. "You got to get up," they shouted. In August that year, a 14-year-old boy called Emmet Till had said, "Bye, baby", to a woman at a store in nearby Mississippi, and was fished out of the nearby Tallahatchie river a few days later, dead with a bullet in his skull, his eye gouged out and one side of his forehead crushed. 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." That summer she became pregnant by a much older man. 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. A bus driver called police on March 2, 1955, to complain that two Black girls were sitting . 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. Then, they will reflect on a time when they took a stand on an important issue. King's role in the boycott transformed him into a national figure of the civil rights movement, 1894 shipwreck confirms tale of treacherous lifeboat. ", She believes that, if her pregnancy had been the only issue, they would have found a way to overcome it. In 1969, years after moving to NYC, she acquired a job working as a Nurse's aide at a Nursing home. In 1956, Colvin gave birth to a son, Raymond. Similarly, Rosa Parks left Montgomery for Detroit in 1957. When Austin abandoned the family, Gadson was unable to financially support her children. Virgo Civil Rights Leader #2. From "high-yellas" to "coal-coloureds", it is a tension steeped not only in language but in the arts, from Harlem Renaissance novelist Nella Larsen's book, Passing, to Spike Lee's film, School Daze. Her rhythm is simple and lifestyle frugal. She gave birth to a fair-skin child named Raymond in the year 1956 whose skin tone was similar to her partner. But Colvin was not the only casualty of this distortion. Colvin later moved to New York City and worked as a nurse's aide. Astrological Sign: Virgo, Article Title: Claudette Colvin Biography, Author: Biography.com Editors, Website Name: The Biography.com website, Url: https://www.biography.com/activists/claudette-colvin, Publisher: A&E; Television Networks, Last Updated: March 26, 2021, Original Published Date: April 2, 2014, I knew then and I know now that, when it comes to justice, there is no easy way to get it. Colvin says that after Supreme Court made its decision, things slowly began to change. [28], The Montgomery bus boycott was able to unify the people of Montgomery, regardless of educational background or class. She retired in 2004. Read about our approach to external linking. Claudette Colvin is a civil rights activist of African descent. "Y'all better make it light on yourselves and let me have those seats," he said. 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. ", "If the white press got ahold of that information, they would have [had] a field day," said Rosa Parks. "I wasn't with it at all. [16] Referring to the segregation on the bus and the white woman: "She couldn't sit in the same row as us because that would mean we were as good as her". 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 told me to let Rosa be the one: white people aren't going to bother Rosa, they like her". Why has Claudette Colvin been denied her place in history? 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. The bus driver had the authority to assign the seats, so when more white passengers got on the bus, he asked for the seats.". This much we know. I knew what was happening, but I just kept trying to shut it out.". 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 . At the time, black leaders, including the Rev. I was crying," she says. "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. "She was not the first person to be arrested for violation of the bus seating ordinance," said J Mills Thornton, an author and academic. Her reputation also made it impossible for her to find a job. Nonetheless, Raymond died at the age of 37, reported Core Online. In July 2014, Claudette Colvin's story was documented in a television episode of Drunk History (Montgomery, AL (Season 2, Episode 1)). "Middle-class blacks looked down on King Hill," says Colvin today. Most Popular #5576. "We learned about negro spirituals and recited poems but my social studies teachers went into more detail," she says. I felt inspired by these women because my teacher taught us about them in so much detail," she says. [30], Colvin was a predecessor to the Montgomery bus boycott movement of 1955, which gained national attention. She worked there for 35 years until her . It was an exchange later credited with changing the racial landscape of America. They forced her into the back of a squad car, one officer jumping in after her. It was a case of 'bourgey' blacks looking down on the working-class blacks. "We had unpaved streets and outside toilets. So, you know, I think you compare history, likemost historians say Columbus discovered America, and it was already populated. It was believed that a venomous snake would die if placed in a vessel made of sapphire. [16], Through the trial Colvin was represented by Fred Gray, a lawyer for the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), which was organizing civil rights actions. History had me glued to the seat.. "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. Yet months before her arrest on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, a 15-year-old girl was charged with the same 'crime'. "They just dropped me. She also had become pregnant and they thought an unwed mother would attract too much negative attention in a public legal battle. Claudette Colvin was the first person arrested by the police in Montgomery, AL for refusing to give up her bus seat. Mothers expressed concern about permitting their children on the buses. "She was a bookworm," says Gloria Hardin, who went to school with Colvin and who still lives in King Hill. First, it came less than a year after the US supreme court had outlawed the "separate but equal" policy that had provided the legal basis for racial segregation - what had been custom and practice in the South for generations was now against federal law and could be challenged in the courts. So he turned on the black men sitting behind her. At 82, her arrest is expunged", "Claudette Colvin's juvenile record has been expunged, 66 years after she was arrested for refusing to give her bus seat to a White person", "John McCutcheon sings Rita Dove's 'Claudette Colvin', Drunk History' Montgomery, AL (TV Episode 2014), "The Newsroom - Will McAvoy On Historical Hypotheticals", "Report: Biopic about civil rights pioneer Claudette Colvin in the works", The Other Rosa Parks (Colvin interview with, Vanessa de la Torre, "In The Shadow of Rosa Parks: 'Unsung Hero' of Civil Rights Movement Speaks Out", "An asterisk, not a star, of black history", Let us Look at Jim Crow for the Criminal he is - Rosa Parks' bus stand and the long history of bus resistance, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Claudette_Colvin&oldid=1142354716. If she had not done what she did, I am not sure that we would have been able to mount the support for Mrs. The churches, buses and schools were all segregated and you couldn't even go into the same restaurants," Claudette Colvin says. 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.'". This was partially a product of the outward face the NAACP was trying to broadcast and partially a product of the women fearing losing their jobs, which were often in the public school system. "She lived in a little shack. 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. Almost nine months after Colvins bus protest, she heard news reports that Parks, a 42-year-old seamstress, had likewise been arrested for a bus seating protest. She still has one - a handwritten note from William Harris in Sacramento. [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. Claudette Colvin became a teenage mother in 1956 when she gave birth to a boy named Raymond. ", 'Facts speak only when the historian calls on them," wrote the historian EH Carr in his landmark work, What Is History? On March 2, 1955, Colvin was riding home on a city bus after school when a bus driver told her to give up her seat to a white passenger. 1956- Colvin was one of four Black women who served as plaintiffs in a federal court suit 1956- Had her child, his name was Raymond 1957- People were bombing black churches 1957- Congress approved the Civil Rights Act of 1957 Just as her case was beginning to catch the nation's imagination, she became pregnant. She retired in 2004. She says she expected some abuse from the driver, but nothing more. "[20], Browder v. Gayle made its way through the courts. Despite the light sentence, Colvin could not escape the court of public opinion. "The light-skinned girls always thought they were better looking," says Colvin. She spent the next decade going back and forth like a yo-yo between the two cities, she said. [36], Colvin and her family have been fighting for recognition for her action. "When I was in the ninth grade, all the police cars came to get Jeremiah," says Colvin. By Monday, the day the boycott began, Colvin had already been airbrushed from the official version of events. She now works as a nurses' aide at an old people's home in downtown Manhattan. 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. However, not one has bothered to interview her. Click to reveal She sat in the colored section about two seats away from an emergency exit, in a Capitol Heights bus. Colvin was initially charged with disturbing the peace, violating the segregation laws, and battering and assaulting a police officer. None of them spoke to me; they didn't see if I was okay. . That left Colvin. ", 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. "It is he who decides which facts to give the floor and in what order or context. I think that history only has room enough for certainyou know, how many icons can you choose? We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. A group of black civil rights leaders including Martin Luther King, Jr., was organized to discuss Colvin's arrest with the police commissioner. 10. But Colvin told the driver she had paid her fare and that it was her constitutional right to remain where she was. In this respect, the civil rights movement in Montgomery moved fast. Parks," her former attorney, Fred Gray, told Newsweek. She was 15. [citation needed]. Colvin. The urban bustle surrounding her could not seem further away from King Hill. Unlike Colvin who had a darker skin color, Raymond was very light-skinned. ", Nonetheless, the shock waves of her defiance had reverberated throughout Montgomery and beyond. She is a civil rights activist from the 1950s and a retired nurse aide. Parks became one of Time Magazine's 100 most important people of the 20th century . [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. I can still vividly hear the click of those keys. Anything to detach herself from the horror of reality. This led to a few articles and profiles by others in subsequent years. "He asked us both to get up. Like Parks, she, too, pleaded not guilty to. She was forcibly removed from the bus and arrested by the two policemen, Thomas J. Born in Alabama #33. She became quiet and withdrawn. I was glad that an adult had finally stood up to the system, but I felt left out.. 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. She works the night shift and sleeps "when the sleep falls on her" during the day. They remember her as a confident, studious, young girl with a streak that was rebellious without being boisterous. As well as the predictable teenage fantasy of "marrying a baseball player", she also had strong political convictions. "What's going on with these niggers?" Colvin was born on September 5, 1939, in Montgomery, Alabama. ", Some in Montgomery, particularly in King Hill, think the decision was informed by snobbery. "I was really afraid, because you just didn't know what white people might do at that time," says Colvin. I was sitting on the last seat that they said you could sit in. She withdrew from college, and struggled in the local environment. Colvin was not invited officially for the formal dedication of the museum, which opened to the public in September 2016. Members of the community acted as lookouts, while Colvin's father sat up all night with a shotgun, in case the Ku Klux Klan turned up. Reverend Ralph Abernathy, who played a key role as King's right-hand man throughout the civil rights years, referred to her as a "tool" of the movement. Under the twisted logic of segregation the white woman still couldn't sit down, as then white and black passengers would have been sharing a row of seats - and the whole point was that white passengers were meant to be closer to the front. Read about our approach to external linking. ", To complicate matters, a pregnant black woman, Mrs Hamilton, got on and sat next to Colvin. ", Everyone, including Colvin, agreed that it was news of her pregnancy that ultimately persuaded the local black hierarchy to abandon her as a cause clbre. I didn't get up, because I didn't feel like I was breaking the law. Taylor Branch. Her timing was superb. 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. They never came and discussed it with my parents. asked one. 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