Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice

Hoose, Phillip. Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice. 2009. 133p. ISBN 978-0-374-31322-7. Available at B COL on the library shelves.

Fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin had no idea she would become the trigger that led to the desegregation of the bus in Montgomery, Alabama when, on March 2, 1955, she decided to remain in her seat instead of giving it up to a white woman. Arrested, handcuffed and jailed, Claudette fought the Jim Crow laws of the South and worked with the NAACP to take her case to court to challenge the constitutionality of “separate but equal.” Unfortunately, the city withdrew the violating segregating law charge and instead Claudette was convicted of assaulting a police officer. The case the South had been waiting for disappeared.

Instead of being praised, Claudette became a pariah at her school and in her community. It didn’t help matters that she became pregnant out of wedlock. Meanwhile, the NAACP’s local secretary, Rosa Parks, followed in Claudette’s steps and was arrested on the bus for not giving up her seat. Unlike Claudette, she was the perfect poster child: She was 42, a devout church goer, well appreciated in the community, and a hard worker.

With nothing changing, Dr. Martin Luther King and his colleagues called for a boycott of the Montgomery bus system, and filed a lawsuit against the city. Claudette was once again approached to testify, and she readily agreed. This time, the lawsuit was successful, and the bus company was ordered desegregated. Claudette’s refusal to give her seat nine months before Rosa Park had been the catalyst for change sought by the African-American community, and her actions directly contributed to the birth of the Civil Rights movement.