Claudette Colvin
By
John C Abercrombie
Another unsung hero in the battle for civil rights is a young woman by the name of Claudette Colvin. At the age of 15, she was arrested for failing to give her seat to a young White woman. Taken to adult jail, she later was a party to a very important court case in the struggle for equal rights.
We will discuss life during these turbulent times, the case and its impact.
During the 1940’s and 1950’s in particular there was seldom a facet of life involving people of color that did not focus on making sure they knew that they were 2nd class citizens. While buses take much of the spotlight, there were many other practices in real life.
In department stores, Blacks were often denied the opportunity to try on clothes, shoes or hats. In some, Blacks would not be served as long as there was a White customer. There were separate water fountains and in summer, Whites had access to refrigerated cool water, while Blacks had only room temperature fountains. Movie theaters denied Blacks the opportunity to sit on the main floor, instead forcing them into the balcony.
On the buses, Blacks and Whites paid the same fare, however, Blacks were forced to sit in the rear of the bus. So invasive were the practices that in some cases, they entered the front door to pay their fare, then had to get off and walk to the back door to board. Sometimes ther drivers would take off without letting them get back on.
Because of segregated seating, no Black could sit in front of any White rider, often causing Blacks to stand even when there were empty seats on the bus. While most buses have 2 seats on each side of the aisle, it was unlawful to even share the same row, so in order to accommodate 1 White person, as many as 4 Blacks had to stand. Keep in mind that the fare for riding was the same.
Colvin had to ride the bus, because the location of the school available for Blacks was not convenient for her to walk. Buses were often not provided for Blacks and in some cases, they had to walk long distances. It was not uncommon for Blacks to have to walk over 5 miles each way to attend school.
March 2, 1955, Colvin and her classmates were riding the bus when they were ordered to move so a White woman could sit. In Colvin’s words, she said, it would not have been a problem if it was an old White woman, but this was a very young woman.
When ordered to stand by the driver, Colvin refused, stating that it was her constitutional right to sit there. The driver drove to a location where there was a policeman and she was dragged off the bus, arrested and taken to an adult jail.
As part of the intimidation of people who dared stand up for there rights, the scene was not a simple one. That night her father had to sit up all night because of the possibility of the house being attacked or bombed by White hate groups. In many cases, people unassociated with the event, but related to or close to the person would be fired from what ever job they held.
Colvin remained in Montgomery until 1958 but had difficulty finding work because of her participation in the federal court case (Browder v Gayle, to be discussed later in this post), she was branded a troublemaker. She had to drop out of college and struggled in the local area.
Because of these events, Claudette Colvin moved to New York and in the beginning lived with her older sister Velma. Claudette got a job as a nurse’s aide and worked there for 35 years, starting in 1969 and retiring in 2004.
After the Montgomery bus boycott inspired by the arrest of Rosa Parks began, the case of Claudette Colvin was considered by Black attorneys Fred Gray, E.D. Nixon, together with White attorneys Clifford Durr and his wife Virginia Durr, both civil rights activists. They were looking for a case to challenge the constitutional legitimacy of the Montgomery (City) and Alabama (State) segregation laws.
The concern was centered around the fact that Park’s case could get tied up in the Alabama State Court. They were looking for a way to get direct access to the federal courts. They spoke with Claudette Colvin, Aurelia Browder, Susie McDonald, Mary Louise Smith and Jeanetta Reese, all of whom had been discriminated by drivers enforcing segregation policy.
They all agreed bypassing the Alabama court system. However, Reese dropped out because of intimidation by Whites. She falsely claimed not to have agreed to the lawsuit and this led to an unsuccessful attempt to disbar Gray.
At the beginning of the Montgomery bus boycott, the Black community wanted better treatment, not subject to the changing whims of drivers and ridership. The complete inflexibility of the City and bus company to make any concessions forced the issue to go much further. There is a video in this post that is an amazing view into that story!
The case on behalf of the 4 women was called Browder v Gayle. Browder was Aurelia Shines Browder Coleman, a widow and mother of 6 children. Browder was arrested for failure to give up her seat to a White rider, about a month after Colvin and 8 months before Rosa Parks. Keep in mind that a Black woman who failed to give up her seat to a White man was subject to arrest. Browder was arrested, convicted and fined for her “crime”. Also keep in mind that criminal records often prevented people from exercising the right to vote.
Browder worked many jobs including seamstress, nurse midwife and teacher. She was described as “well-read, highly intelligent and fearless”
Browder was a determined woman, completing high school in her 30’s, she earned a bachelor’s degree in science from Alabama State University, graduating with honors, a member of the national Alpha Kappa Mu Honor Society.
The case of Browder v Gayle resulted in a decision that segregated buses violated the equal protection and due process guarantees of the 14th Amendment and were therefore unconstitutional. December 17, 1956, the United States Supreme Court upheld the ruling, issuing a court order to the state of Alabama to desegregate all buses.
The videos that accompany this post give a revealing view into the matter, including the fact that the failure of the City and other agencies to give in even a little bit caused much of the action to be taken.
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Videos
Claudette Colvin: The Original Rosa Parks
Around the same time Rosa Parks famously protested segregation by refusing to give up her bus seat to a white passenger, a teenager named Claudette Colvin went to jail in Montgomery, Ala., for doing the exact same thing. This is her story.
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Book
She Persisted:
13 American Women Who Changed the World
Chelsea Clinton introduces tiny feminists, mini activists and little kids who are ready to take on the world to thirteen inspirational women who never took no for an answer, and who always, inevitably and without fail, persisted.
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Video
Larry Mullins
Fighting For Her Rightful Place in History: The Claudette Colvin Story
15-year-old Claudette Colvin refused to stand up for a white passenger in March of 1955. Nine months later seasoned civil rights advocate, Rosa Parks, also famously refused to give up her seat. Although both women were arrested and brought to trial it is Colvin’s case which not only reached the Supreme Court but changed the law and desegregated the buses. Despite the trial’s success, Ms. Colvin’s case was greatly overshadowed by Parks’ arrest. The stories of both women have been repeatedly misreported and after decades of erasure and no recognition Colvin share’s her story with 1010 Wins’ Larry Mulllins.
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She Persisted Boxed Set
Two books, twenty-six women — and unlimited inspiration for tiny feminists, mini activists and little kids who are ready to take on the world. The perfect gift for the holidays and beyond.
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Browder v Gayle:
The Most Important Civil Rights Case You Never Heard Of
Most people know the Montgomery Bus Boycott, but very few ever learn about Browder v. Gayle, the historic court case that put an end to segregated public transportation in the South.
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Book
Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice
“When it comes to justice, there is no easy way to get it. You can’t sugarcoat it. You have to take a stand and say, ‘This is not right.'” – Claudette Colvin
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Clothing for Women
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13th November 1956: Browder v Gayle leads to desegregation on buses
Jim Crow laws firmly established racial segregation on buses in the Southern states, even in the face of the increasing national civil rights movement. In Alabama’s capital, Montgomery, the arrest of seamstress and local NAACP secretary Rosa Parks after she refused to give up her seat sparked a city-wide boycott of the buses.
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Vitamins and Supplements For Women
ABH – Vitamins and Supplements for Women
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Book
Freedom’s Children: Young Civil Rights Activists Tell Their Own Stories
In this inspiring collection of true stories, thirty African-Americans who were children or teenagers in the 1950s and 1960s talk about what it was like for them to fight segregation in the South-to sit in an all-white restaurant and demand to be served, to refuse to give up a seat at the front of the bus, to be among the first to integrate the public schools, and to face violence, arrest, and even death for the cause of freedom.
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Video
Outstanding video Highly recommended
The Achievements of the Civil Rights Revolution—Browder v. Gayle: Challenging de jure Segregation
Harvard Law Prof. Randall Kennedy discusses Browder v. Gayle, a 1955 federal lawsuit filed to challenge statutes requiring segregation on public transportation in Montgomery, Alabama. The case was a touchstone of the Civil Rights era, stemming from the Montgomery bus boycott, helping launch the advocacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and resulting in an opinion that helped topple “separate but equal” segregation laws. Kennedy’s lecture was part of a civil rights lecture series supported by the Robert R. Wilson Fund at Duke University.
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Judging from the sentence given to Claudette Colvin a 15 year old young woman for failure to give up the seat she had paid for on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama to a young White woman, and the sentences being handed down to White men for murdering Black men, it is logical to conclude that in America a much more serious for a Black woman to refuse to give up her seat than for a White man to murder a Black.
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