Claudette Colvin

Claudette Colvin (born September 5, 1939 ) is one of the pioneers of the American civil rights movement from 1955 to 1968.

She resisted racial segregation on public buses in Alabama on March 2, 1955 , nine months before the better-known civil rights activist Rosa Parks . After her arrest, she was the first to not pay the prescribed fine, but instead went to court. The resulting procedures abolished the segregation of bus traffic.

Her civil disobedience was not publicized by the NAACP for a long time because Colvin, a teenager at the time , was expecting an illegitimate child during the trial. It was feared that this would make her a bad role model for the movement.

The bus incident

Colvin was a student at Booker T. Washington High School in Montgomery in 1955. On her way back on March 2, she wanted to get on a Capital Heights bus (at the same place, nine months later, Rosa Parks got on for her protest).

Buses were divided into several sections. Only white people were allowed to sit in the front, black seats were in the back. Blacks were allowed to sit in the middle - but only until a white person claimed a seat there. Then all blacks in that row had to get up and stand back in order to maintain racial segregation. When a white woman got on, the bus driver Robert W. Cleere ordered Colvin (and two other black passengers) to get up. When Colvin refused, she had to get off the bus and was arrested by two police officers.

During the previous school day she had been working on an essay that dealt with another aspect of segregation - blacks were not allowed to use the dressing room in clothing stores.

Legal proceedings

On May 11, 1956, Colvin, along with three other women, said in a Montgomery courtroom in the Browder v. Gayle out. The trial was fought up to the US Supreme Court. The lawyers did not refer to Colvin's case, as she was charged with "violation of public order" but not with racial segregation on buses.

See also

• Montgomery bus boycott

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Claudette Colvin: The first to stay seated , US embassy and consulates in Germany. January 31, 2012. Accessed December 13, 2019. 
2. ^ "Her circumstances would make her an extremely vulnerable standard-bearer" ISBN 0-671-68742-5 p. 123
3. ↑ Claudette Colvin: an unsung hero in the Montgomery Bus Boycott . In: JET , FindArticles , February 28, 2005. Retrieved November 27, 2009. 
4. ↑ Eliza Gray: A Forgotten Contribution: Before Rosa Parks, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin refused to give up her seat on the bus . In: Newsweek , March 2, 2009. Archived from the original on November 3, 2013 Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved November 26, 2009. "On March 2, 1955, nine months before Parks famously refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Ala., A skinny, 15-year-old schoolgirl was yanked by both wrists and dragged off a very similar bus. "  
5. ^ Douglas Brinkley: Rosa Parks . Viking, 2000, ISBN 978-0-670-89160-3 .
6. ↑ Cassandra Spratling: 2 other bus boycott heroes Praise Parks' acclaim , Chicago Tribune . November 16, 2005, p. 2.