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On this day in 1955, Claudette Colvin, 15, refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama.
On this day in 1955 by Jerry Mitchell, Mississippi Today March 2, 2024 March 2, 1955 Claudette Colvin was 15 when she refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Ala., bus to a white passenger. Nine months before Rosa Parks, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama.
“History had me glued to the seat,” the civil rights pioneer told the Guardian. “It felt as if Harriet Tubman’s hand was pushing me down on the one shoulder, and Sojourner Truth’s hand was pushing me down on the other. Learning about those two women gave me the courage to remain seated that day.” She aspired to become a civil rights lawyer and when the bus driver ordered her to move, she responded, “It’s my constitutional right to sit here as much as that lady. I paid my fare.” When two white police officers tried to drag her from the bus, she told them it was her constitutional right to stay. They handcuffed her, jailed her and charged her with violating segregation laws, disturbing the peace and assaulting a police officer. She learned of racism at a young age, and she was disturbed by what she heard in her all-Black school. “One thing especially bothered me – we Black students constantly put ourselves down,” she said in “Twice Toward Justice.” “The N-word – we were saying it to each other, to ourselves. I’d hear that word and I would start crying. I wouldn’t let people use it around me.” After her arrest, she grew close with Parks. Other Black women followed her lead, refusing to surrender their seats, including Mary Louise Smith, Aurelia Browder and Susie McDonald. They brought the groundbreaking Browder v. Gayle lawsuit that resulted in Montgomery’s segregated bus system being declared unconstitutional. “When it comes to justice, there is no easy way to get it,” she said. “You can’t sugarcoat it. You have to take a stand and say, ‘This is not right.’”This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.The stories of investigative reporter Jerry Mitchell have helped put four Klansmen and a serial killer behind bars. His stories have also helped free two people from death row, exposed injustices and corruption, prompting investigations and reforms as well as the firings of boards and officials. He is a Pulitzer Prize finalist, a longtime member of Investigative Reporters & Editors, and a winner of more than 30 other national awards, including a $500,000 MacArthur “genius” grant. After working for three decades for the statewide Clarion-Ledger, Mitchell left in 2019 and founded the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting.
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