It’s arguably a sin of history, let alone Black History Month, that many people are unfamiliar with Claudette Colvin. She was Rosa Parks before Rosa Parks was Rosa Parks. Unfortunately, Colvin is just a footnote in the Civil Rights Movement when, in reality, she should be celebrated as a pioneer.
About nine months before Parks took a stand by sitting on a seat on a bus, Colvin did the very same thing. What is the difference between the two? Colvin was an unwed, pregnant teenager “during her proceedings,” and civil rights leaders were worried that such an image would be counterproductive to the movement.
“Later, I had a child born out of wedlock. I became pregnant when I was 16,” Colvin said in an interview with NPR in 2015. “And I didn’t fit the image either, of, you know, someone they would want to show off.”
Nevertheless, Colvin’s act of defiance against a racist institution warrants praise and celebration even to this day. Parks may have received all the credit and glory, but Colvin pioneered the fight. Her contribution to the Civil Rights Movement began on March 2, 1955.
While taking public transportation home after school, Colvin sat down in the section reserved for black people on buses in Montgomery, Alabama.
“And so as the bus proceeded on downtown, more white people got on the bus,” Colvin said. “Eventually, the bus got full capacity, and a young white lady was standing near the four of us. She was expecting me to get up.”
As more people entered the bus, the driver demanded that Colvin give up her seat. Several of the girls acquiesced, but Colvin did not. She took a stand by sitting down.
“Whenever people ask me: ‘Why didn’t you get up when the bus driver asked you?’ I say it felt as though Harriet Tubman’s hands were pushing me down on one shoulder, and Sojourner Truth’s hands were pushing me down on the other shoulder,” Colvin said. “I felt inspired by these women because my teacher taught us about them in so much detail.”
“And I said, ‘I paid my fare, and it’s my constitutional right,’” Colvin stated in interviews long after her ordeal. “I remember they dragged me off the bus because I refused to walk. They handcuffed me and took me to an adult jail.”
Unfortunately, instead of a hero’s welcome, Colvin was shamed and eschewed in her community after her arrest for her resistance. Some were upset that she took a stand and didn’t comply. Others felt she needlessly endangered her family and community. Later, Colvin challenged the legality of Montgomery bus segregation laws. Colvin and four other women were named plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed in district court. The case Browder v. Gayle was heard by the Supreme Court, which ruled that bus segregation laws were unconstitutional.
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Colvin and Parks are civil rights icons. However, Parks was selected instead of Colvin as the face of the Montgomery bus boycott for image reasons. And just like many are unfamiliar with Colvin’s story, people are also typically unaware of the background of Parks’s story. The usual narrative presents Parks’s actions as a random display of defiance against a racist system. However, it was premeditated. Parks and the NAACP worked together ahead of time to decide when and where she would be arrested for refusing to give up her seat. This part of history is rarely taught.
Since Colvin was a pregnant teenager, there were concerns she would be viewed less sympathetically than Parks, a working woman and secretary of the NAACP who was well known and respected. Thus, Colvin never received the attention Parks did. Nevertheless, Colvin’s resistance reverberated throughout history. At age 15, she facilitated a much-needed change in the country and helped bring the odious bigotry of Jim Crow to a consequential defeat in federal court. The astonishing bravery of a teenager from yesteryear paved the way for a better tomorrow for black people and all Americans.