Claudette Colvin: How One Girl Changed the Civil Rights Movement

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By Marlena Ryan

Imagine being 15 years old. You leave your high school for the day, and board the city bus with your schoolbooks. You sit down after a long day, but shortly after, you are told to give up your seat to a white woman, not because she is elderly, disabled, or even pregnant. You are ordered to get up because you are black. This is the story of Claudette Colvin. Her refusal to give up her seat on a city bus nine months before Rosa Parks, played a vital role in the civil rights movement and led to the end of the bus segregation laws in Montgomery, Alabama.

Claudette Colvin recently celebrated her 81st birthday on September 5th of 2020. In an interview she had with NPR (National Public Radio) back in 2009, she stated that she remembered that fateful day back in 1955 like it was yesterday. Her story is also detailed in the book, “Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice” by author Philip Hoose.

Claudette Colvin went to Booker T. Washington High School, in Montgomery, Alabama, in the 1950s. Since her family did not own a car, she relied on the city bus to take her to and from school. On March 2, 1955, Claudette Colvin boarded the bus as usual from her school, heading on her way home. When the bus driver told her to get up so a white woman could sit in her seat. She refused. There was an empty seat next to Ms. Colvin and two empty seats across the aisle. In her recollections about that day, Ms. Colvin said in a New York Times article, “If she sat down in the same row as me, it meant I was as good as her.”

This 15-year-old girl responded to the bus driver by saying that she had paid her fare and it was “her constitutional right”. The bus driver notified police and when they arrived, they demanded that Ms. Colvin get up. She began to cry and still refused to get up saying, “It’s my constitutional right to sit here as much as that lady. I paid my fare, it’s my constitutional right!”

The police officers proceeded to forcefully remove Claudette Colvin, lifting her out of her seat and causing her schoolbooks to fly everywhere. She did not physically fight back, but as they dragged her off the bus, she kept saying, “It’s my constitutional right!” One of the officers kicked her. Then, she was handcuffed and placed in the back of the police car. During the ride to the city jail, the police officers swore at Ms. Colvin, calling her “nigger bitch”. They joked about parts of her teenage body. Remarkably, she kept her composure, praying the whole time she was in the police car. Once they arrived at the jail, Ms. Colvin was taken to a cell without being allowed to make a phone call. She began to cry again and prayed like she had never prayed before.

Classmates of Claudette Colvin’s who had also been on the bus, contacted her mother, Mary Ann Colvin. After learning that her daughter had been arrested, she contacted their pastor, Reverend H.H. Johnson. He drove Mary Ann Colvin to the police station and bailed Claudette Colvin out of jail.

But that night, the Colvin family was afraid. They were afraid of retaliation after Claudette Colvin had bravely stood up to the white bus driver and white police officers. The family knew that there had been lynching’s, and cross burnings for similar behavior. They also knew that the KKK could easily arrive in their neighborhood. So, the family stayed up that night. Her dad sat up all night, and some of their neighbors also kept watch.

The NAACP wanted to use Claudette Colvin’s case to change the bus segregation laws, which made the front of the bus reserved for white patrons and the seats in the back reserved for black patrons. But her case was not used because Ms. Colvin was a pregnant teenager who was viewed as being “mouthy, emotional, and feisty”. Her youth along with her pregnancy would draw too much negative attention to the black community. Instead, the black community wanted a person who was an adult with a middle-class look and impeccable character. Rosa Parks would become that individual nine months later.

Yet, after the Montgomery bus boycott, Claudette Colvin became one of five plaintiffs in the court case of Browder vs Gayle. This court case was filed two months after the boycotts to challenge the bus segregation laws in Alabama and in the city of Montgomery. The other plaintiffs included Aurelia Browder, who was arrested one month after Claudette Colvin for refusing to give up her seat to a white bus rider. Susie McDonald was a black woman in her 70s who walked with a cane and was arrested in October of 1955 for violating the bus segregation laws. Mary Louise Smith was an 18-year-old black woman who was also arrested in October for refusing to give up her seat. A woman named Jeanatta Reese was also listed as a plaintiff, but sadly, she withdrew from the case after enduring intimidation from the white community.

The defendants included Mayor William A. Gayle, the city’s chief of police, two bus drivers, and others. Aurelia Browder was listed as the lead plaintiff in the court case because at 37 years old, she was considered the best representation of all the plaintiffs. Since the Browder vs Gayle case was able to bypass being heard in the local courts, it was used over the Rosa Parks case. On June 5, 1956, the U.S. District Court ruled the bus segregation laws unconstitutional. However, the Montgomery bus boycott continued until the ruling was finally implemented December of 1956.

Two years later, Claudette Colvin moved to New York city where she gave birth to her second son and worked as a nurse’s aide in Manhattan. She retired in 2004. In 2005, Claudette Colvin had this to say to the Montgomery Advertiser, “I feel very, very proud of what I did. I do feel like what I did was a spark and it caught on. I’m not disappointed. Let the people know Rosa Parks was the right person for the boycott. But also let them know that the attorneys took four other women to the Supreme Court to challenge the law that led to the end of segregation.”

At 81 years old, Claudette Colvin’s story is still not widely known, but her role in the civil rights movement has not been forgotten. In 2017, March 2nd was named Claudette Colvin day in Montgomery, Alabama, to honor her bravery when she was arrested as a 15-year-old girl. And, in 2019, a granite marker along with granite markers for the three four plaintiffs in the Browder vs Gayle case, were put on display near the Rosa Parks statue in Montgomery, Alabama. Claudette Colvin was reluctant for years to tell her story. Yet, it was Philip Hoose, an author who stumbled upon her story while doing research for another book. But after almost four years of reluctance from Ms. Colvin, he not only helped her share her story, but found what he called “the rebel girl” inside of her.

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