Black History Feature - Claudette Colvin - The Testimony That Ended Segregation

We are going to Montgomery, Alabama in 1955. a young woman was the first person to be arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white lady on the bus. She was arrested and became one of four plaintiffs in Browder v. Gayle, which ruled that Montgomery’s segregated bus system was unconstitutional. That woman’s name is

CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Colvin was born on September 5, 1939, in Montgomery, Alabama. Claudette was a 15-year-old girl getting on the bus to go home after a typical day at Booker T. Washington High School when a white lady approached her and her friends on the bus. She demands they move to the back of the bus so she can sit in the seats near the front. Claudette’s friends got up and made their way to the back but, Claudette had paid her fair and she did not want to move simply because of the color of her skin and the privilege the white woman held.

The bus driver alerted the police because Claudette won’t move and giving. This white lady could have sat in another seat but, remember, we are in 1955, Montgomery Alabama, and “you never know what the white people will do.”. Claudette is a child and she is drug off the bus by two male police officers. She was heard saying,

“It’s my constitutional right to sit here as much as that lady. I paid my fare, it’s my constitutional right. This is my constitutional right!!”

After her refusal to give up her seat, Colvin was arrested on several charges, including assault and battery and violating the city’s segregation laws. For several hours, she sat in jail, completely terrified. “I was really afraid, because you just didn’t know what white people might do at that time,” Colvin later said. After her minister paid her bail, she went home where she and her family stayed up all night out of concern for possible retaliation. - Biography.com

This article above sparks a flood of letters to be sent to the NAACP, stating that Claudette is so brave and praising her for being wonderful. The person who reads all the letters….is the secretary of the NAACP, Rosa Parks.

Rosa Parks goes to see Claudette at her home and they bond over how courageous Colvin is. They quickly become friends and Claudette begins to attend the NAACP meetings together where Claudette stays the night with Rosa after.

Some time passes and the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP’s president, E.D. Nixon began working on the idea of what he called, “a bus boycott.” He wanted to start a revolution. His initial thought was to use Claudette Colvin’s arrest as a reason to boycott the busses -assuming people would get behind her. The push back came from within, others saying “the white people would not accept her because of her dark skin” and they couldn’t have a 15-year-old be the face of the desegregation movement.

E.D Nixon states that they can have Rosa Parks be the face of the movement.

It is then that Rosa Parks sits down in the white section of the bus and is arrested and taken to jail. She had to act as though she was tired and not threatening as to not be charged extra and to gain sympathy from the white people.

The NAACP then put a flyer in the hand of every black person in Montgomery, Alabama including Claudette Colvin. The flyer said

“Please, do NOT ride the bus on Monday.

We are boycotting the arrest of ROSA PARKS.”

Claudette was hurt that she found out about this through a flyer. It was at that time that Claudette also found out she was pregnant. Her high school also finds out that she is pregnant and she is kicked out of school. She has a tremendously hard time finding a job because she was placed on “indefinite probation”, her reputation mangled by the newspaper article.

The boycott continues for months when Fred Grey, one of the only two black lawyers in Montgomery comes to Claudette’s home.

His plan: sue the city of Montgomery because segregation is unconstitutional and asks if she will testify after she has given birth to her baby. She agrees and the rest is history that you probably don’t know!

Claudette is a star witness that is put on the stand and the judge rules.

Segregation is unconstitional.

Claudette Colvin and her testimony helped end segregation.

Two years later, she moved to New York and became a nurse.

55 Years Later

A reporter finds Claudette and asks her, “Aren’t you the woman who did what Rosa Parks did but everyone thinks Rosa Parks did it first? Aren’t you jealous of Rosa Parks and how everyone celebrates her?’ Claudette responded with, “I made my peace with that. I’m just satisfied that my children can sit wherever they want on the bus.”

Rita Dove penned the poem “Claudette Colvin Goes to Work,” which later became a song. Phillip Hoose also wrote about her in the young adult biography Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice.

Claudette is 81 years old. Yes, Claudette is still alive and so are the racial disproportions that exist in our current justice system.

Do what you can for your local black community and do not perpetuate hate towards any person!

“Claudette gave all of us moral courage. If she had not done what she did, I am not sure that we would have been able to mount the support for Mrs. Parks,” - Fred Gray. ”