Claudette and Rosa
Claudette Colvin (b, September 5, 1939) is an African American woman from Alabama. In 1955, at the age of 15, she refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus to a white person, in violation of local law. Her arrest preceded civil rights activist Rosa Parks' (on December 1, 1955) by nine months.
Ms. Colvin was a student at Booker T. Washington High School. Colvin's family didn't own a car, so she relied on the city's gold-and-green buses to get to school. On March 2, 1955, she boarded a public bus and, shortly thereafter, refused to give up her seat to a white man. Colvin was coming home from school that day when she got on a Capital Heights bus downtown at the same place Parks boarded another bus months later.
The bus was getting crowded the bus driver looking through the rear view mirror asking her to get up out of her seat, which she refused. She just continued looking out the window. She decided on that day that she wasn't going to move. Other black passengers complied; Colvin ignored the driver. The driver walked back and asked her again. She moved for white people before, but this time, she was thinking of the slavery fighters she had read about recently during Negro History Week in February. The spirit of Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth was in her that day. She did not move. She was sitting about two seats from the emergency exit when four whites boarded and the driver ordered her, along with three other black passengers, to get up. She refused. There were two officers approached her, she started crying, she tried to explain herself. One of them kicked the thin teenager and knocked the textbooks from her arms, she was dragged off the bus while others did or said nothing or tried to help. They were too afraid for their own lives. She was handcuffed and taken to the city jail, where she was charged with disorderly conduct, violating the segregation ordinance and assault and battery, presumably because she clawed the officers with her long
Ms. Colvin was a student at Booker T. Washington High School. Colvin's family didn't own a car, so she relied on the city's gold-and-green buses to get to school. On March 2, 1955, she boarded a public bus and, shortly thereafter, refused to give up her seat to a white man. Colvin was coming home from school that day when she got on a Capital Heights bus downtown at the same place Parks boarded another bus months later.
The bus was getting crowded the bus driver looking through the rear view mirror asking her to get up out of her seat, which she refused. She just continued looking out the window. She decided on that day that she wasn't going to move. Other black passengers complied; Colvin ignored the driver. The driver walked back and asked her again. She moved for white people before, but this time, she was thinking of the slavery fighters she had read about recently during Negro History Week in February. The spirit of Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth was in her that day. She did not move. She was sitting about two seats from the emergency exit when four whites boarded and the driver ordered her, along with three other black passengers, to get up. She refused. There were two officers approached her, she started crying, she tried to explain herself. One of them kicked the thin teenager and knocked the textbooks from her arms, she was dragged off the bus while others did or said nothing or tried to help. They were too afraid for their own lives. She was handcuffed and taken to the city jail, where she was charged with disorderly conduct, violating the segregation ordinance and assault and battery, presumably because she clawed the officers with her long