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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 On March 2, 1955, a full nine months before Rosa Parks took her famous stand, Colvin boarded a city bus with her friends, taking a seat behind the first five rows, which were reserved for Her name was Claudette Colvin. But the world was not yet ready to hear her name. Claudette’s story has long been overshadowed by the more famous act of defiance performed by Rosa Parks later that year. Parks, with her carefully curated image as a quiet, respectable, middle-aged woman, became the face of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The NMAAHC has a section dedicated to Rosa Parks, which Colvin does not want taken away, but her family's goal is to get the historical record right, and for officials to include Colvin's part of history. Colvin was not invited officially for the formal dedication of the museum, which opened to the public in September 2016. [37] After school on March 2, 1955, Claudette Colvin walked to downtown Montgomery with three of her classmates. She and her friends were going to take the city bus home from school that day. When they boarded the bus, they sat behind the first five rows, which were reserved for white passengers. Claudette Colvin is an American woman who was arrested as a teenager in 1955 for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white woman. Her protest was one of several by Black women challenging segregation on buses in the months before Rosa Parks’s more famous act. Claudette Colvin recalled that she only went to Youth Council meetings “if I could get a ride” and sometimes she would “stay overnight at Rosa’s — she lived in the projects across the street.” Parks exhibited a certain forcefulness and strictness with the young people. C&S: Tell me about this campaign in Albany to declare a “Claudette Colvin Day.” CC : If you’ve given Mrs. Parks all the recognition, then you haven’t told the true story! Most of the young children, they have this takeaway, especially in New York – down in the South, they understand a little bit more – that the civil rights movement In the chronicles of the Civil Rights Movement, one name remains regrettably shrouded by the obscurity of history – Claudette Colvin. Aged just 15, this fiery teenager, imbued with the spirit of resistance, defied the oppressive conventions of a racially segregated Montgomery, Alabama, a full nine months before the more famous act of defiance by Rosa Parks. On March 2, 1955, Claudette stood Few people know the story of Claudette Colvin: When she was 15, she refused to move to the back of the bus and give up her seat to a white person — nine months before Rosa Parks did the very same It was actually Claudette Colvin who first took the bus-related stand, inspiring Parks and Montgomery Bus Boycott that followed. Imagine it: a fifteen year old girl inspiring an entire wave of the civil rights movement. 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 got pregnant. The leaders in the Civil Rights Movement tried to keep up appearances and make the ‘most appealing’ protesters the most seen. Did Martin Luther King, Jr meet Rosa Parks? Nine months earlier, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin had been arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger. In October 1955, 18-year-old Mary Louise Smith had been arrested under similar circumstances, but both cases failed to stir Montgomery’s black leadership to help launch a mass protest. March 2, 1955. Claudette Colvin, 15, is arrested for allegedly violating Montgomery’s ordinance requiring segregation on the city’s buses. King, Jo Ann Robinson of the Women’s Political Council, Rosa Parks of the Montgomery NAACP, and others later meet with city and bus company officials. Hoose says Parks benefited greatly from Claudette Colvin's courage. "Rosa Parks nine months later had an awful lot of information that came from Claudette's experience—her court experience, her experience in the community, all those churches raised money for her and there had been all those meetings with the city to discuss the Colvin case The Other Rosa Parks: Now 73, Claudette Colvin Was First to Refuse Giving Up Seat on Montgomery Bus. Story March 29, 2013. But other civil rights leaders in the community do meet with bus 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 federal court lawsuit that ended bus segregation. Rosa Parks also left Montgomery in 1957 and moved to Detroit. Colvin initially resided in New York with her son Raymond and her older sister Velma Colvin. It was through this work that Parks met and mentored Claudette Colvin, a 15-year-old girl who refused to give up her seat in a bus eight months before Parks took her stand. It did not say Rosa History remembers the bold.Alexander the Great, Marie Curie and Neil Armstrong are all remembered for their audacity, discoveries and exploration. But sometimes, a figure slips through the cracks.While Rosa Parks is celebrated for her refusal to give up her bus seat, Claudette Colvin’s identical act of defiance in the same city nine months earlier has been all but forgotten. City & State’s Jeff Coltin talked to Colvin about life in the Jim Crow South, being passed over and the current state of the movement. The following is an edited transcript. City & State: March 2, 1955. Why did you decide at that moment not to give up your seat? Claudette Colvin: It was just another day. That evening we got out of school early.
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