Posted on 20/12/2021 by Evolve in Blog
Claudette Colvin was born in Birmingham Alabama. She later moved to Montgomery with her family.
There she attended a high school for African American students learning about important African Americans in History. She used to discuss the unfairness of segregation with her classmates.
In March 1955, when Claudette was 15 years old, she was riding a bus in Montgomery. The driver asked her to give her seat to a white person, but she refused. Claudette said she had a right to sit there.
Her action went against the segregation laws of Montgomery so two police officers dragged her off the bus, put her in handcuffs and took her to jail. She was later made to pay a fine.
It was thought that her actions would bring attention to the injustice of segregation, but members of the civil rights group The National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, thought that she was to immature to represent the struggle for civil rights. In the end, Rosa Parks became the symbol of that movement.
Claudette still challenged bus segregation laws in court and in 1956, after participating in a legal case, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of making segregation on buses illegal.
In 2009, a book about her life ‘Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice’ won the national book award for young people’s literature.
