Black history fact #18: Claudette Colvin

What's going on, everybody. Welcome to another episode of a day with crime, black history fact edition. Of course I am your man, David. Let's jump in. 

Today I'm going to cover something that is little known to a lot of people are. That I never knew it was before on my other podcast, which is a day with crime on black history month.

I think it's epic. Our season two, uh, we actually covered Rosa parks and everybody knows about Rosa parks and everything that [00:01:00] happened around her, but what nobody or a lot of people don't seem to know is that Rosa parks was not the first African American to refuse. To give up her seat. Now I know that that's what we hear, but we're going to explain that when, why that is today.

So today we're going to talk about clot at Colvin on my Facebook. Here's what what's posted. And then we're going a little bit more detail about clot it. Nine months before Rosa parks, there was a young woman named Claudia Colvin on December 1st, 1955. Rosa parks refused to relinquish her seat on a public bus parks protest sparked the Montgomery bus protests and galvanized the civil rights movement yet.

She was not the first African-American individual in Montgomery to stand up against [00:02:00] injustice in such a manner on March 2nd, 1955, 15 year old Claudia Colvin was riding home on a city bus after a long day at school. Oh, white passenger boarded and the bus driver ordered Claudia to give up her seat call that refused.

As she later told Newsweek, I felt like Sojourner truth was pushing down on one shoulder and Harriet Tubman was pushing down on the other. I was glued to my seat. Colvin was arrested for civil rights, disobedience and briefly putting in. The NAACP and other civil rights groups consider rallying around Colvin's case in their campaign against Alabama segregation laws.

Before focusing efforts on Rosa parks protest nine months later, nevertheless, Colvin was one of four planters in the landmark Browder versus Gayle case of 1956, which ruled that the segregation laws in Montgomery and Alabama. [00:03:00] State or unconstitutional. All right. So let's talk a little bit about Claudia Colvin.

Give you some information on this young lady who is not widely talked about at all, but actually was the whole beginning in the catalyst behind the Montgomery boycott movement, not giving up her seat. So Claudette Colvin was born on September 5th, 1939. She is a retired American nurses aid and she was a pioneer of the 1950 civil rights movement.

Colvin was one of five plaintiffs in the first federal court case filed by civil rights attorney Fred gray on February 1st, 19, didn't put these six as Browder vs. Scale to challenge bus segregation in the city, in the United States district court. She testified before the three judge panel that heard the case on June 13th, 1950.

The judges determined that the state and local [00:04:00] laws requiring bus segregation in Alabama were unconstitutional. The case went to the United States Supreme court on appeal by the state and, and upheld the district court's ruling on November 13th, uh, 19 56, 1 month later, the Supreme court affirmed the order to Montgomery and the state of Alabama to end bus segregate.

The Montgomery bus boycott was then called off for many years. Montgomery's black leaders did not publicize Kovens pioneering effort. She was an unmarried teenager at the time and was reportedly impregnated by a married man. Colvin has said, and I quote young people think Rosa parks just sat down on a bus and ended segregation, but that wasn't the case at all.

Unquote. It is widely accepted. That Colvin was not accredited by the civil rights campaigners at the time, due to her pregnancy [00:05:00] shortly after the incident with even Rosa parks saying in our quote, if the white press got a hold of that information, they would have had a field day. They call her a bad girl.

In her case, wouldn't have a chance, unquote. So there you have it. The reason why you don't hear about Claudia Colvin is the Sisley because it was buried. Uh, there's no better way to put it NAACP buried it because she was unmarried. She was a 15 year old teenager. And I guess having an affair with a married man, and they don't think they didn't think that the case had a chance.

So let's get into a little bit more about the bus incident, and then it goes a little bit probably into, you know, how Harriet Tubman right. Got drug into this. This happened again, nine months later, and this is the case that they staked everything on in 1955, Colvin was a student at the segregated Booker T [00:06:00] Washington high school in the city.

She relied on the city's buses to get to and from school because her parents did not own a car. But majority of customers on the bus system were African-American, but they were discriminated against by its customer segregated seating. She said that she aspired to be president one day and Colvin was a member of the NAACP youth council and had been learning about the civil rights movement in school.

On March 2nd, 1955, she was returning home from school. She sat in the color section about two seats away from an emergency exit and at Capitol Heights. If the bus became so crowded that all the white seats in the front of the bus were filled until white people were standing any African-Americans were supposed to get up from nearby seats to make room for whites, move further to the back and stand in the aisle.

If there were no free seats in that. When a white woman who got on the bus was left standing in [00:07:00] the front of the bus driver. Robert w clear commanded Colvin and three other black women in her role to move to the back, the other three moved, but another pregnant black woman, Ruth Harris. Got on and sat next to Colvin.

The driver looked at them in his mirror. He asked us both to get up. Mrs. Hamilton said she was not going to get up and that she had paid her fair and that she didn't feel like standing. We calls coven. So I told him. I was not going to get up either. So he said, if you are not going to get up, I will get a policemen.

The police arrived in convinced a black man sitting behind the two women to move so that Mrs. Hamilton could move back. But Colvin still refuse to move. She was forcibly removed from the bus and arrested by the two policemen, Thomas J. Ward and Paul. This event took place [00:08:00] nine months before the NAACP secretary Rosa parks was arrested for the same offense.

Colvin later said, quote, my mother told me to be quiet about what I did. She told me to let Rosa be the one white people aren't going to bother Rosa. They like her unquote Colvin did not receive the same attention as parks for a number of reasons. She did not have good hair. She was not fair skinned. She was a teenager.

She got pregnant. The leaders in the civil rights movement tried to keep up appearances and make the most appealing protestors. The most seen when Culver refused to get up, she was thinking about a school paper. She had written that day about the local custom that prohibited blacks from using the dressing rooms in order to try on clothes, the apartment.

In a later interview, she said, quote, we couldn't try on clothes. [00:09:00] You had to take a brown paper bag and draw a diagram of your foot and take it to the store. Unquote, referring to the segregation on the bus and the white woman quote, she couldn't sit in the same row as us because that would mean we were as good as her.

The bus was getting crowded. And I remember the bus driver looking through the rear view mirror, asking her Colvin to get up for the white woman. She, which she didn't set any Larkins price, a classmate of Colvin. She had been yelling it's my constitutional right. She decided on that day that she wasn't going to.

Colvin recall history kept me stuck to my seat. I felt the hurt the hand of Harriet telling, pushing down on one shoulder and Sojourner truth. Pushing down on the other Culver was handcuffed, arrested, and forcibly removed from the bus. She shouted that her constitutional rights were being violated.

Colvin said quote, but I made a [00:10:00] personal statement to one that parks didn't make and probably couldn't have me. Mine was the first cry for justice and allowed one unquote the police officers who took her to the station, made sexual comments about her body and took turns guessing her bra size throughout the ride price testify for Colvin who was tried in juvenile court, coven was initially charged with disturbing the peace violating the segregation laws and battering and assaulting a police officer.

There was no assault price. She also said in the book, Claudia Colvin twice towards justice by phyllo who's that one of the police officers sat in the back seat with her. This made her very scared that they would sexually assault her because this happened very commonly. She was bailed out by her minister who told her that she had brought the revolution to Montgomery through the trial.

Coven was represented by Fred gray, a lawyer for the Montgomery improvement [00:11:00] association or the. Which was organizing civil rights actions. She was convicted of all three charges in juvenile court. When Kovens case was appealed to the Montgomery circuit court on May 6th, 1955, the charges of disturbing the peace and violating the segregation laws were dropped.

Although her conviction for assaulting a police officer was upheld Colvin's moment of activism was not solitary or rant. And high school. She had high ambitions of political activity. She dreamed of becoming the president of the United States. Her political inclination was fueled in part by an incident with her schoolmate.

Jeremiah Reeves Reeves was found having sex with a white woman who claimed she was raped though. Reese claims their relations were consensual. He was executed for his alleged crimes. So there you have it folks. I've known about [00:12:00] this for a long time. And I put it out there and a lot of people look at me like I was crazy, but yes, as you just heard Rosa parks off the first one, I will be the first one to admit.

And I always have that. Yes, there is issues with light skin and black skin or dark skin blacks. And in this case, which you heard it for yourself because she was too, light-skinned it. She didn't have good hair. She had nappy hair. So, I guess they feel like, you know, you were a little bit darker, Rosa parks, a lot more sophisticated.

She was an older woman. She was had a, you know, a profession. She looked the part and it just happened to fit into the point that this happened nine months later. So the credit has always been given to Rosa parks. When in fact Claudette Colvin was the first one, not to give a person. Now there was a case Browder versus Gayle.

So [00:13:00] states that together would Ariella as broader Susie MacDonald, Mary Louise Smith and Janetta Reese Colvin was one of the five plaintiffs in the court case of Browder vs. Scale Jeanetta RISD later resigned from the case, the case organized and filed in federal court by civil rights, attorney Fred gray, challenged city bus segregation in Montgomery, Alabama as unconstitutional.

During the court case coven describes her arrest. I quote, I kept saying he has no civil rights. This is my constitutional right. You have no right to do this. And I just kept blabbing things out and I never stopped. That was worse than stealing, you know, talking back to a white person, unquote Browder vs.

Gill made his way through the. On June 5th, 1956, the United States district court for the middle district of Alabama issued a ruling declaring the state of Alabama and Montgomery's laws, mandating public bus segregation as [00:14:00] unconstitutional state and local officials appeal the case to the United States Supreme court.

The Supreme court summarily affirmed the district court decision on November 13th, 1956. One month later, the Supreme court declined to reconsider. And on December 20th, 1956, the court ordered Montgomery and the state of Alabama to end bus segregation permanently the Montgomery bus boycott was able to unify the people of Montgomery regardless of educational background or class.

So what has happened? To Claude at Colvin since then, since all this took place right now, she is still alive. And she is about 81 years old. She gave birth to a son, Raymond in March of 1956, his skin was noticeably light and people [00:15:00] frequently assumed his father was Elliott Klein, who was a very prominent white male in the Montgomery community who was known for sympathizing with black.

Elliot later admitted to being the father of the child. Although there was skepticism by others, Colvin left Montgomery for New York city in 1958 because she had difficulty finding and keeping work following her participation in the federal court case that overturned bus segregation. So merrily Rosa parks left Montgomery for Detroit in 1957, Colvin stated she was branded a troublemaker by many in her committee.

She withdrew from college and struggled in the local environment in New York Colvin and her son, Raymond initially live with caught his older sister Velma Colvin, or that landed a job in 1969. As a nurses aid in a nursing home in Manhattan. She worked there for 35 years retiring in 2004, while living in New York, [00:16:00] she had a second son.

He became an accountant in Atlanta. Raymond Colvin died in 1993. And New York have a heart attack at age 37. So that's what she's been up to as of 2004, I have found no other information on what's been going on with her. So if anybody knows, feel free to fill me in, but I found nothing as I was looking to see what she's actually doing.

Now, we do know that she is retired and that she is very much. So it says that her legacy is pretty much going to be that she was the predecessor to the Montgomery bus boycott moving in 1955. And of course that gained national attention. Uh, she's rarely told this story after moving to New York. Okay. So it's like, she, she didn't really make it voiceless other, she moved to New York of what was going on.

A lot of people didn't know her because it did go nationally. Uh, discussions in the black community began to [00:17:00] focus on black enterprise rather than integrating. In all the national civil rights legislation did not pass until 1964 in 1965. And then it does state that black organizers believe that Rosa parks would be a better figure for a test case for integration because she was an adult.

She had a job and had a middle-class appearance. They felt she had the maturity to handle being at the center of potential controversy. So it is to make mention, as we close out here that Colvin was not the only woman of the civil rights movement who was left out of the history books. Just to let you guys know that in the south male ministers made up the overwhelmingly majority of leaders, this was partially a product of the outward face.

The NAACP was trying to broadcast and partially a product of the women fearing, losing their jobs. Which were often in the public school system in [00:18:00] 2005 Colvin told the Montgomery advertiser that she would not have changed her decision to remain seated on the bus. And I quote, 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 that the people know Rosa parks was the right person for the break. 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 on quote on May 20th, 2018, Congressman Joe Crawley honored Colvin for a lifetime commitment to public service with a congressional certificate and an American flag.

So there you have it folks, obviously she's not bitter about it. She does feel that Rosa parks was. The right choice because of her situation. And as we did talk about the mother podcasts, they were crime. Yeah. They just basically felt like that they would lose the case. Let's just face it fell it, they would lose the [00:19:00] case.

They didn't, they could have been taken seriously because we have a underage person who's pregnant by, you know, a white dude who was married. So. You can't get away with that. Uh, but it is to be known if all black history is to be told correctly, it's got to be known that Claudia Colvin was the first. She was the catalyst.

She was the beginning. I'm not taking away anything. Rosa parks. It's the same thing Colvin did. And as a young African-American kid, we were always taught about Rosa parks. It wasn't until I got older on my own. And when I started doing my own research and history into my culture, hotness, governor Claudette, Colvin, and believe me because of what I've been taught all my whole life, it was very.

Weird to see, I guess I didn't believe it at first. I think I had to read it four or five [00:20:00] times. I had to go to three or four different sources just to make sure what I was reading was authentic. So the right thing to do is the thing, both Connie coven and Rosa parks call that COVID began it. Rosa parks.

And now we can sit on the bus anywhere that we want to. We don't have to give up our seat unless it is for a person who has a handicap and needs the front seats. But that means anyone of any color has to give up and should give up their seat for said person. 

 all right, guys that does with this. And I thank you for tuning in to yet another black history fact here. Join me tomorrow, I have another one for you. 

As always need to get ahold of us, feel free to drop a line. At a day with [00:21:00] crime@gmail.com. Also, don't forget to visit the website, www.adaywithcrime.com. It is your one stop shop for everything that is a day with crime. Alright guys, as always be safe all there and be good to yourself. and each other. And I'm going to catch you guys on the next one.