Black History Month

Claudette Colvin

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Naomi Thomas, Staff Writer

Before Rosa Parks, civil rights activist Claudette Colvin refused to give up her seat to a white person on a bus in segregated Montgomery, Alabama. She was arrested nine months before Parks’ moment in civil rights history. The bus driver ordered her to get up; however, she mentioned how she paid her fare and it was her constitutional right. Police then proceeded to arrest her and was convicted of violating the segregation law and disturbing peace. There are many reasons why she is not known, one of them being at the time Colvin was only 15 years old. Black organizations such as the NAACP thought Rosa Parks would be a better icon because she was an adult.

 

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I just couldn’t move. History had me glued to the seat.

— Claudette Colvin