I was thinking, Hey, I did that months ago, Colvin recalled. Virgo Civil Rights Leader #2. Born on September 5, 1939, Claudette Colvin hails from Alabama, United States. New York, Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, This page was last edited on 1 March 2023, at 23:25. "They'd call her a bad girl, and her case wouldn't have a chance. "Whenever people ask me: 'Why didn't you get up when the bus driver asked you?' [39] Later, Rev. Read about our approach to external linking. I felt the hand of Harriet Tubman pushing down on one shoulder and Sojourner Truth pushing down on the other. Video1894 shipwreck confirms tale of treacherous lifeboat, How 10% of Nigerian registered voters delivered victory, Sake brewers toast big rise in global sales, The Indian-American CEO who wants to be US president, Blackpink lead top stars back on the road in Asia, Exploring the rigging claims in Nigeria's elections, 'Wales is in England' gaffe sparks TikToker's trip. Tour: Black America and the burden of the perfect victim. "He asked us both to get up. She refused, saying, "It's my constitutional right to sit here as much as that lady. While her role in the fight to end segregation in Montgomery may not be widely recognized, Colvin helped advance civil rights efforts in the city. However, her story is often silenced. Parkss protest helped spark the Montgomery bus boycott, which black leaders sought to supplement with a federal civil suit challenging the constitutionality of Montgomerys bus laws. The legal case turned on the testimony of four plaintiffs, one of whom was Claudette Colvin. Claudette Colvin was an African American civil rights activist who pioneered the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s. She deserves our attention, our gratitude and a warm, bright spotlight all her own. "It took on the form of harassment. She was forcibly removed from the bus and arrested by the two policemen, Thomas J. Colvins feisty testimony was instrumental in the shocking success of the suit, which ended segregated seating on Montgomerys buses. The boycott was very effective but the city still resisted complying with protesters' demands - an end to the policy preventing the hiring of black bus drivers and the introduction of first-come first-seated rule. ", To complicate matters, a pregnant black woman, Mrs Hamilton, got on and sat next to Colvin. 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 said she felt as if she was "getting [her] Christmas in January rather than the 25th. [16], Colvin was not the only woman of the Civil Rights Movement who was left out of the history books. I paid my fare, it's my constitutional right." That's what they usually did.". In this small, elevated patch of town, black people sit out on wooden porches and watch an impoverished world go by. The bus went three stops before several white passengers got on. The woman alleged rape; Reeves insisted it was consensual. Similarly, Rosa Parks left Montgomery for Detroit in 1957. "Move y'all, I want those two seats," he yelled. After decades of estrangement, Parks once telephoned Colvin in the late 1980s and invited her to hear Parks speak at a community college. Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth were both African Americans who sought the abolition of slavery, Tubman was well known for helping 300 fellow slaves escape slavery using the, Truth was a passionate campaigner who fought for women's rights, best known for her speech, Claudette Colvin spoke to Outlook on the BBC World Service. And, like Parks, the local black establishment started to rally support nationwide for her cause. As an adult, she worked as a nurse's assistant in New . Somehow, as Mrs. But somewhere en route they mislaid the truth. Most Americans, even in Montgomery, have never heard of her. The court declared her a ward of the state and remanded her to the custody of her family. But attorney Gray found it all but impossible to find riders who would potentially risk their lives by attaching their names as plaintiffs. The three other girls got up; Colvin stayed put. The other three moved, but another black woman, Ruth Hamilton, who was pregnant, got on and sat next to Colvin. With funding from church donations and activities organized by the chapter, Colvin had her day in court. Colvin says Parks had the right image to become the face of resistance to segregation because of her previous work with the NAACP. 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. When the white seats were filled, the driver, J Fred Black, asked Parks and three others to give up their seats. In March 1955, nine months before Rosa Parks defied segregation laws by refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin did exactly the same thing. It was going to be a long night on Dixie Drive. "She was a victim of both the forces of history and the forces of destiny," said King, in a quote now displayed in the civil rights museum in Atlanta. She was detained on March 2, 1955, in . "We had unpaved streets and outside toilets. 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. Daryl Bailey, the District Attorney for the county, supported her motion, stating: "Her actions back in March of 1955 were conscientious, not criminal; inspired, not illegal; they should have led to praise and not prosecution". "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. "I would sit in the back and no one would even know I was there. "So did the teachers, too. The driver looked at the women in his mirror. "I never swore when I was young," she says. .css-m6thd4{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;display:block;margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;font-family:Gilroy,Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.2;font-weight:bold;color:#323232;text-transform:capitalize;}@media (any-hover: hover){.css-m6thd4:hover{color:link-hover;}}How the Greensboro Four Began the Sit-In Movement, Biography: You Need to Know: Bayard Rustin, Biography: You Need to Know: Sylvia Rivera, Biography: You Need to Know: Dorothy Pittman Hughes, 10 Influential Asian American and Pacific Islander Activists. None of them spoke to me; they didn't see if I was okay. In 2009, the writer Phillip Hoose published a book that told her story in detail for the first time. They would have come and seen my parents and found me someone to marry. "I didn't know if they were crazy, if they were going to take me to a Klan meeting. 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. So, you know, I think you compare history, likemost historians say Columbus discovered America, and it was already populated. asked one. Three of the students had got up reluctantly and I remained sitting next to the window," she says. "I thought he would stop and shout and then drive on. I was glued to my seat," she later told Newsweek. This made her very scared that they would sexually assault her because this happened frequently. "[21] Colvin recalled, "History kept me stuck to my seat. 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. "It is the second time since the Claudette Colvin case that a Negro woman has been arrested for the same thing.". 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. Nonetheless, Raymond died at the age of 37, reported Core Online. She herself didn't talk about it much, but she spoke recently to the BBC. She was arrested and became one of four plaintiffs in Browder v. Gayle, which ruled that Montgomery's segregated bus system was unconstitutional. Rosa didnt give me enough time to put in for a day off, she recalled. CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST, 81, BIRMINGHAM, AL. Colvin was not invited officially for the formal dedication of the museum, which opened to the public in September 2016. For months, Montgomerys NAACP chapter had been looking for a court case to test the constitutionality of the bus laws. [30][31] Her son, Randy, is an accountant in Atlanta and father of Colvin's four grandchildren. "New York is a completely different culture to Montgomery, Alabama. [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. 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. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. Claudette Colvin is an activist who was a pioneer in the civil rights movement in Alabama during the 1950s. Claudette Colvin and her guardians relocated to Montgomery when . "[4][5] Colvin's case was dropped by civil rights campaigners because Colvin was unmarried and pregnant during the proceedings. "The white people were always seated at the front of the bus and the black people were seated at the back of the bus. Best Known For: Claudette Colvin is an activist who was a pioneer in the civil rights movement in Alabama during the 1950s. 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. Rembert said, "I know people have heard her name before, but I just thought we should have a day to celebrate her." Another factor was that before long Colvin became pregnant. Colvin later moved to New York City and worked as a nurse's aide. We used to have a lot of juke joints up there, and maybe men would drink too much and get into a fight. The Montgomery bus boycott was then called off after a few months. Four years later, they executed him. The once-quiet student was branded a troublemaker by some, and she had to drop out of college. Raymond Colvin, age 62, a resident of Ft. Deposit, AL, died April 13, 2013. 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. Claudette Colvin is a civil rights activist who, before .css-47aoac{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-thickness:0.0625rem;text-decoration-color:inherit;text-underline-offset:0.25rem;color:#A00000;-webkit-transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;}.css-47aoac:hover{color:#595959;text-decoration-color:border-link-body-hover;}Rosa Parks, refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger. Claudette Colvin (born Claudette Austin; September 5, 1939)[1][2] is an American pioneer of the 1950s civil rights movement and retired nurse aide. 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. 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." 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 was born on September 5, 1939. ", Almost 50 years on, Colvin still talks about the incident with a mixture of shock and indignation - as though she still cannot believe that this could have happened to her. "She lived in a little shack. 1939- Claudette was born in Birmingham 1951- 22nd Amendment was put into place, limiting the presidential term of office . She gave birth to a fair-skin child named Raymond in the year 1956 whose skin tone was similar to her partner. ", Some in Montgomery, particularly in King Hill, think the decision was informed by snobbery. He wasn't." She sat in the colored section about two seats away from an emergency exit, in a Capitol Heights bus. Claudette Colvin became a teenage mother in 1956 when she gave birth to a boy named Raymond. Keep supporting great journalism by turning off your ad blocker. She prayed furiously as they sped out, with the cop leering over her, guessing at her bra size. [24], Colvin's moment of activism was not solitary or random. She decided on that day that she wasn't going to move. The baby was fair-skinned just like his dad and people accused her of having a white baby. 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, 81, was a true pioneer in the Civil Rights Movement. The leaders in the Civil Rights Movement tried to keep up appearances and make the "most appealing" protesters the most seen. 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. "But according to [the commissioner], she was the first person ever to enter a plea of not guilty to such a charge.". He went back to Colvin, now seven months pregnant. She was convicted on all charges, appealed and lost again. 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]. [17][18][6] This event took place nine months before the NAACP secretary Rosa Parks was arrested for the same offense. 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. "You got to get up," they shouted. She fell out of history altogether. The decision in the 1956 case, which had been filed by Fred Gray and Charles D. Langford on behalf of the aforementioned African American women, ruled that Montgomery's segregated bus system was unconstitutional. Claudette Colvin Popularity . Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. Site contains certain content that is owned A&E Television Networks, LLC. "If it had been for an old lady, I would have got up, but it wasn't. 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. 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. She became quiet and withdrawn. Ms. Colvin in New York on Feb. 5, 2009. "I told Mrs Parks, as I had told other leaders in Montgomery, that I thought the Claudette Colvin arrest was a good test case to end segregation on the buses," says Fred Gray, Parks's lawyer. Everybody knew. "We walked downtown and my friends and I saw the bus and decided to get on, it was right across the road from Dr Martin Luther King's church," Colvin says. Rita Dove penned the poem "Claudette Colvin Goes to Work," which later became a song. The driver caught a glimpse of them through his mirror. Second, she was the first person, in Montgomery at least, to take up the challenge. "What's going on with these niggers?" Her parents were Mary Jane Gadson and C.P. In July 2014, Claudette Colvin's story was documented in a television episode of Drunk History (Montgomery, AL (Season 2, Episode 1)). That was worse than stealing, you know, talking back to a white person. "The light-skinned girls always thought they were better looking," says Colvin. Colvin left Montgomery for New York City in 1958,[6] because she had difficulty finding and keeping work following her participation in the federal court case that overturned bus segregation. She still has one - a handwritten note from William Harris in Sacramento. 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. 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 . Blake persisted. Despite the light sentence, Colvin could not escape the court of public opinion. All I could do is cry. [16] On March 2, 1955, she was returning home from school. 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. Parks was, too. Black people were allowed to occupy those seats so long as white people didn't need them. "[20], Browder v. Gayle made its way through the courts. 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