Before there was Rosa Parks, there was Claudette Colvin.
Most people think of Rosa Parks as the first person to refuse to give up their seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. There were actually several women who came before her; one of whom was Claudette Colvin.
It was March 2, 1955, when the fifteen-year-old schoolgirl refused to move to the back of the bus-- nine months before Rosa Parks’ stand that launched the Montgomery bus boycott. Claudette had been studying Black leaders like Harriet Tubman in her segregated school, and those conversations had led to discussions around the current day Jim Crow laws they were all experiencing.
When the bus driver ordered Claudette to get up, she refused. "It felt like Sojourner Truth was on one side pushing me down, and Harriet Tubman was on the other side of me pushing me down. I couldn't get up."
Claudette Colvin’s stand didn’t stop there. Arrested and thrown in jail, she was one of four women who challenged the segregation law in court.
If Browder v. Gayle became the court case that successfully overturned bus segregation laws in both Montgomery and Alabama, why has Claudette’s story been largely forgotten?
At the time, the NAACP and other Black organizations felt Rosa Parks made a better icon for the movement than a teenager. As an adult with the right look, Rosa Parks was also the secretary of the NAACP, and was both well-known and respected – people would associate her with the middle class and that would attract support for the cause. But the struggle to end segregation was often fought by young people, more than half of which were women.
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DelMarVa's Premier Source for News, Opinion, Analysis, and Human Interest Contact Publisher Joe Albero at alberobutzo@wmconnect.com or 410-430-5349
6 comments:
And that's not all. The Republican party often appointed black legislators in an effort to overturn Democrats discriminatory laws like Jim Crow. When that failed it was the formation of a murderous group called the KKK that set about intimidating and murdering blacks.
For 80 years after the Civil War ended the Grand Ole Party persevered fighting constantly for blacks to be granted Civil Rights.
Then, in 1960 JFK recognized there could be a lot of votes if they gave free stuff.
Only conservative blacks today see the truth. The family unit was far more intact when blacks worked and not depended on free stuff.
But Black History Month is almost a joke and certainly one could argue racist. No month is White History month. And no I'm not advocating for that, it's just been noticed.
And Colonel Sanders was really a china man. So your point is ?Ray?
They'er lucky they weren't on the same bus as me, I would have punched them in the face, and no one would even care! I remember Salisbury used to have "White Only" signs all over town.
Here's a little unknown black fact Martin Luther King's is turning over in his grave over the current way the majority of black america lives.. not all mind you i have friends, served and work with many fine examples of what Dr King envisioned.
February 7, 2018, at 5:56 PM
They're lucky alright. You seem so freaking proud of being a racist bully. You have to be old now. Soon, you will die and one less racist will be in the world unless you, unfortunately, had offspring and thought them the way you think and feel.
And by including "no one would even care", shines a bad light on Smallsbury and its' citizens as well.
So it seems to me Smallsbury was already a shithole before "that kind" ruined it for everyone. So I guess smallsbury is getting some karma they brought on themselves.
Enjoy the payback. Mean bullies just can not stand it when others repay them with what they have inflicted on others.
Ok you 2 ..take it out into the street !! !!
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