03/03/2023
in 1955, Montgomery, Alabama teen Claudette Colvin refused to give up her seat to a white woman on a city bus.
Colvin was arrested and charged with 2 counts for violating Montgomery's segregation ordinance as well as a felony count for assaulting a police officer. She was convicted on all counts in juvenile court and placed on "indefinite probation" after her conviction on the assault charge. Her record was expunged – 66 years later in December 2021.
Colvin’s actions preceded those of civil rights icon, Rosa Parks by 9 months. Unlike Parks, who had many connections with grassroots civil rights activists through her work with the NAACP, Colvin had not been active in civil rights issues as a teenager. In fact, many refused to support her since she had not been active with organizations such as the NAACP and was seen as a rebellious teenager, not a civil rights activist or an inspiring figure that could lead a boycott movement.
Decades after her refusal to relinquish her seat she said of her protest, “I felt that [Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman] each had a hand on my shoulders pushing me down. History had me glued to the seat.” This figure was willing to protest the treatment of Black women on local buses months before Montgomery Boycott begun.
📸 Courtesy of the Visibility Project, Claudette Colvin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
