Hey, hey, and welcome back to Feminist Friday, the monthly blog that makes you more smarter! So we all know about Rosa Parks, right? And I mean, the legitimate story. Not that old “she was tired” chestnut, but her refusal to move seats on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, on December 1, 1955, was a calculated move she planned with other members of the NAACP. BUT! Did you know she was not the first to refuse to move? And did you know the reason for making Parks the face of the bus boycott was also a very calculated move on the part of the NAACP? Maybe you do, and if so, kudos, history buff! But for those of you who don’t, let me tell you a little bit about an unsung hero that I personally have been singing the praises of for years now (ask any of my coworkers): Claudette Colvin!
Early Years
She was born Claudette Austin on September 5, 1939. When her father left, her mother could not care for Claudette and her sister, Delphine, so the girls were taken in by Mary Anne and Q. P. Colvin, the girls’ great aunt and uncle. The girls called the Colvins their parents and took the Colvins' last name. At this time, the family lived in Pine Level, Alabama, the same town Rosa Parks grew up in (there’s a shocking amount of parallels between Colvin and Parks, so buckle up). At 8, the family moved to King Hill, a Black neighborhood in Montgomery, AL. Sadly, Delphine passed from polio two days before Colvin turned 13.
By all accounts, Colvin was a brilliant young lady; she aspired to be president of the United States one day. She was also incredibly aware of how she, and people like her, were seen as second-class citizens. She was a classmate of Jeremiah Reeves, a young Black man who was wrongfully accused and arrested for sexually assaulting a white woman (sadly, Reeves would be put to death for this wrongful conviction in 1958). As an adult, she would recall how Black people weren’t allowed to try on clothes or shoes at the store; “You had to take a brown paper bag and draw a diagram of your foot ... and take it to the store". Colvin would join the NAACP Youth Council, where she would meet her mentor…Rosa Parks (I told you!).
“It’s My Constitutional Right!”
On March 2, 1955, Colvin was heading home for the day from Booker T. Washington High School with some classmates. They hopped on the city bus to head home; they made sure to sit in the “colored” section towards the back of the bus. As many of us have heard, when the “white” section got too full (or I would imagine if a white person just wanted to sit farther back), the Black people sitting towards the front of the “colored” section would have to move. And, of course, this happened. When a white woman boarded the bus, and there were no seats left in the front, the bus driver, a white man named Robert W. Cleere, demanded that Claudette and her classmates move. The other girls complied; Claudette did not. At the same time, Ruth Hamilton, a Black woman several months pregnant, also boarded the bus and sat next to Claudette. The bus driver asked Colvin and Hamilton to move; when they refused, the bus driver went to get the police.
Now people were getting angry (well, the white people were). People started yelling at Colvin to just get up and move. One exchange I read about really sticks out in my mind: A young white man cried, “You got to get up!” A young Black man responded, “She ain't got to do nothing but stay black and die”, and if that’s not just the best response, I don’t know what is. So the police show up, and here’s an interesting tidbit: When they approached Ruth Hamilton, they couldn’t seem to bring themselves to be rude to a pregnant lady. Apparently, pregnancy trumps race. Instead, the police asked some Black men to give up their seats for Hamilton; they did. Now they were left with Colvin, who hadn’t budged. They were not as nice. They asked her to get up. She refused. They asked again (I would imagine a little more forcefully). She again refused. Colvin, who had recently learned more about civil rights, later stated of the encounter, “It felt like Harriet Tubman was pushing me down on one shoulder and Sojourner Truth was pushing me down on the other shoulder. History had me glued to the seat.”
Then the violence began. She was kicked multiple times by the two officers. They grabbed her and Colvin when limp: dead weight, a nonviolent protest strategy. As they drug her off the bus, she began screaming, “It’s my constitutional right!”. Looking at the police report, you’ll see the officers wrote that she kicked and scratched at them. Witness testimony from the day clearly refutes this. Colvin also stated later that when the police put her in their car, they began making comments about her bra size and other sexually charged comments. This was when she began to get scared, as anyone would in this situation. They took her to the station, booked her, and threw her in a cell. She recited poems and prayers to keep from becoming overwhelmed. Eventually, her pastor was able to pick her up and take her home. By this time, everyone knew what had happened. It was a long night; the Colvin family, as well as their neighbors, stayed up all night, afraid there would be retaliation from the white community.
The Aftermath
Black leaders in the civil rights movement met to discuss Colvin. They had been talking about how to kick off a bus boycott in Montgomery, and here was an incredible test case! Fred Gray, Colvin’s lawyer and a prominent civil rights activist (who would go on to later defend none other than Rosa Parks), supported using Colvin’s case as a catalyst. Despite going to trial and being found guilty (with indefinite probation), Colvin was receiving letters from across the country; the Black community at large was in agreement that Colvin was a hero, a trailblazer. One letter from William Harris in Sacramento read, “The wonderful thing which you have just done makes me feel like a craven coward. How encouraging it would be if more adults had your courage, self-respect, and integrity.” However, Black leaders saw Colvin as a liability. Colvin was very dark skinned, from working poor, and only a child. Even worse (to the leaders), she had recently become pregnant out of wedlock. Black leaders felt it would be easy for the white community to dismiss Colvin. So they decided to go in another direction, one that we all know well today: Rosa Parks.
Not long after Parks' arrest, Black community leaders decided it would be a good idea to file a federal lawsuit against Montgomery to challenge bus segregation. Fred Gray would reach out to Colvin, Aurelia Browder, Susie McDonald, Mary Louise Smith, and Jeanetta Reese, all young women who had been discriminated against by bus drivers due to segregation. They entered a case called Browder v. Gayle (Browder was the oldest of the young women; Gayle was W.A. Gayle, mayor of Montgomery). Reese dropped out of the case in February of 1956 due to harassment. The other four women stood their ground; Colvin would give birth to her first son, Raymond, during the court case. In June of 1956, the District Court ruled "the enforced segregation of black and white passengers on motor buses operating in the City of Montgomery violates the Constitution and laws of the United States" under the 14th amendment. Of course, the city of Montgomery and the state of Alabama appealed because what’s a good trial without an appeal? In November 1956, the Supreme Court upheld the decision and ordered the city to desegregate the buses. This would not happen until December, when Gayle was given an official written notice by federal marshalls.
Quiet for Awhile
Life was not easy for Colvin after all these events. She was unable to find work, branded a troublemaker by both the white and Black employers in the area. In 1958 she moved to New York City, where nobody knew her story, and she didn’t offer it. In 1960 she had another child, Randy, and in 1969 she became a nurse’s aide at a nursing home, a job she kept for 35 years before retiring in 2004. It was then that she retook the mantle of activist. With the help of her sister and son Randy (Raymond sadly died in 1993), Colvin began to tell her story again. She began touring schools and community events. She was not looking for fame; she simply wanted people to know that there were so many like her, nameless and faceless Black Americans who stood up to racism but, for whatever reason, were lost to history.
Today, Colvin lives in the Bronx. At 83, she still speaks about her story, although COVID ended her touring. It wasn’t until 2021 that her juvenile record was finally expunged. There are now some city streets named after her, and the Phillip Hoose book Twice Towards Justice has shared her story with children worldwide; she was featured on the show Drunk History (where I first learned about her). While she still believes she was passed over for crummy reasons, she harbors no resentment; what matters is that change happened and continues to happen.
Conclusion
This post became longer than I intended, but I can’t help it. When I first heard the story of Claudette Colvin, I remember being so frustrated: why had I never heard of this kick ass, courageous young woman? Who was this teenager, basically a child, who stared down racism, and racism blinked first?! In this work I do, I have learned some hard truths. One is that usually, those at the forefront of a movement are often, sadly, forgotten. Why? Because those early movers and shakers are usually women of color, and/or youth. And who is historically ignored? Women of color and/or youth. As a white adult woman, I do believe that part of my responsibility is not only to acknowledge this truth but to actively rectify it. Honestly, Claudette Colvin is a big reason why I originally wanted to start writing about lesser-known figures in feminist and civil rights history. And I think she represents an essential lesson in activism: Start listening to women of color and the youth. They are saying things that need to be heard. Things might get better a little faster if we would just shut the hell up and listen.
Claudette Colvin, we honor you!
Sources:
“Before Rosa Parks, There Was Claudette Colvin”, Margot Adler, NPR: https://www.npr.org/2009/03/15/101719889/before-rosa-parks-there-was-claudette-colvin
“Claudette Colvin”, Biography: https://www.biography.com/activist/claudette-colvin
“She Would Not Be Moved”, The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2000/dec/16/weekend7.weekend12
“Before Rosa Parks, A Teenager Defied Segregation On An Alabama Bus”, NPR: https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/02/27/389563788/before-rosa-parks-a-teenager-defied-segregation-on-an-alabama-bus
“Claudette Colvin”, The Rebellious Life of Rosa Parks, Jeanne Theoharis: https://rosaparksbiography.org/bio/claudette-colvin/
“Claudette Colvin: the woman who refused to give up her bus seat – nine months before Rosa Parks”, Oliver Laughland, The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/feb/25/claudette-colvin-the-woman-who-refused-to-give-up-her-bus-seat-nine-months-before-rosa-parks
“This once-forgotten civil rights hero deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom”, Phillip Hoose, The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/this-once-forgotten-civil-rights-hero-deserves-the-presidential-medal-of-freedom/2016/04/01/9d122726-e7bb-11e5-b0fd-073d5930a7b7_story.html
“Claudette Colvin Seeks Greater Recognition For Role In Making Civil Rights History”, Larry Mullins, CBS New York: https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/claudette-colvin-civil-rights-movement-smithsonian/
“Browder v. Gayle, 352 U.S. 903”, Stanford University Martin Luther King, Jr.
Research and Education Institute: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/browder-v-gayle-352-us-903
“She refused to move bus seats months before Rosa Parks. At 82, her arrest is expunged”, NPR: https://www.npr.org/2021/12/16/1064890661/claudette-colvin-rosa-parks-arrest-record-expunged