Thread by @DavidZabinsky

You've heard of Rosa Parks:

The American hero that refused to give up her seat on a bus in 1955.

But have you heard of Claudette Colvin, who at 15, refused to give up HER bus seat nine months before Rosa did?

Colvin's story has gone virtually untold for decades...

Until now👇

It was 1955.

Claudette Colvin was a 15-year-old girl living in Montgomery, Alabama.

She attended Booker T. Washington High School and would get to and from school everyday using the city's segregated bus system.

You see, back then in Montgomery, African-Americans were required to sit in the back of the bus, called the "colored section."

If the bus were to get so crowded that it became standing room only, Black riders were supposed to forfeit their seat to white riders.

And so one March afternoon on the way home from school, with the bus filling up, the bus driver ordered the 15-year-old Colvin to get up so that a white woman could take her seat.

But Colvin?

She refused.

"I felt like Sojourner Truth was pushing down on one shoulder and Harriet Tubman was pushing down on the other—saying, 'Sit down girl!'" Colvin would later say.

"I was glued to my seat."

And even as others began to yell at her...

Colvin stayed glued to that seat, deep in thought:

"We couldn't try on clothes," Colvin reminisced.

"You had to take a brown paper bag and draw a diagram of your foot and take it to the store. Can you imagine all of that in my mind?"

So that day, with Colvin's brave defiance on that Montgomery bus...came naturally...

The Montgomery police.

And when one of the two arresting officers stepped on board, he looked at Colvin and said:

"That's nothing new. I've had trouble with that 'thing' before."

Both policemen would demean and threaten the 15-year-old, but nonetheless…

Colvin wasn't going anywhere.

So eventually?

They'd forcibly yank her from her seat and violently drag her off the bus.

"I went limp as a baby," Colvin would say.

"I was too smart to fight back."

Fighting back, Colvin knew, would excuse the policemen to escalate the physicality of the arrest, which could put her life at risk.

So instead?

Colvin would yell, referring to her refusal to forfeit her seat:

"It's my constitutional right! It's my constitutional right!”

With Colvin handcuffed and thrown in the back of a police car, the bus drove off.

"It just killed me to leave the bus," Colvin said in retrospect.

But she had no choice.

"I hated to give that white woman my seat when so many black people were standing. I was crying hard."

Upon arriving at the police station, Colvin was put into an adult cell with no explanation...no call home.

"I looked around me: three bare walls, a toilet, and a cot. Then I fell down on my knees in the middle of the cell and started crying again."

Imagine: a 15-year-old.

Fortunately, just hours later, Colvin's pastor and civil rights activist Reverend H.H. Johnson would bail her out, but nonetheless, she was convicted on three counts:

Two counts of violating segregation laws and one count of assaulting an officer.

Then, less than a year later, Colvin would serve as a plaintiff in the landmark Browder v. Gayle case that would...finally...put an end to bus segregation.

Colvin, as we well know, was correct all along.

It WAS her constitutional right to stay in her seat.

But all of this begs an important question...

Claudette Colvin, like Rosa Parks, is a hero.

She played such an integral part in the Civil Rights Movement in fighting for Black equality...at the age of 15, no less!

Why is it, then, that history seems to have forgotten her?

That is, in the words of author Phil Hoose:

There was a teenager…nine months before Rosa Parks…

"...in the same city, in the same bus system, with very tough consequences, hauled off the bus, handcuffed, jailed and nobody really knew about it."

Why?

Well, it seems it was by design.

"My mother told me to be quiet about what I did," Colvin would say in 2009, looking back on that day in 1955.

"She told me: 'Let Rosa be the one. White people aren’t going to bother Rosa — her skin is lighter than yours and they like her.'"

And so as Rosa Parks masterfully epitomized and courageously led the Civil Rights Movement, spearheaded by her own brave refusal to give up her seat on a segregated bus, Colvin, for decades, went almost...unnoticed...

Forgotten about.

Part of it had to do with her age.

Colvin was a teenager at the time, and activists thought a teen wouldn't be as strong of an icon as an adult would.

Further, Rosa's "skin texture was the kind that people associate with the middle class," Colvin added.

"She fit that profile."

But even though Colvin was kept away from the national press, that's not to say she was kept away from a more local notoriety in Montgomery.

Her entire hometown had "shunned her as a troublemaker."

As a result?

Nobody would employ her.

Nobody.

So…by time she was 18, Colvin would be forced to move to New York City -- the only place she could find work.

And as the NPR writes, even when moving over 1,000 miles away from Montgomery to New York, "she hardly ever told her story."

Hardly ever.

But now, after over five decades of fleeing headlines and going nearly unmentioned, Colvin is - for really the first time - telling her important story.

And rightfully so.

Remember: as a 15-year-old, Colvin was arrested on three counts:

Two violating segregation laws and one assaulting an officer.

The first two counts had long been overturned...but the one on assaulting an officer?

It was - 66 years later - STILL on Colvin's record.

So just three months ago, Colvin filed to have her criminal record expunged.

"I’m not doing it for me, I’m 82 years old," she said.

"Having my records expunged will mean something to my grandchildren and great grandchildren. And it will mean something for other Black children."

The Judge to oversee her case?

Judge Calvin Williams, seen here.

"It’s somewhat of a full circle...that an African American judge such as myself can sit in judgment of a request such as this to give Ms. Claudette Colvin really the justice that she so long deserved," he said.

And soon after her petition was filed, Judge Calvin Williams swiftly...proudly...permanently wiped clean Colvin's juvenile record from 66 years earlier.

Now, Claudette Colvin's record?

Spotless.

Colvin? Williams?

They celebrated the decision last month...together.

"I'm so glad I'm sitting next to the judge. And he's colored," Colvin said.

"No, it doesn't matter what color you are," Colvin would add.

"Righteous is righteous."

Well said, Ms. Colvin. Well said.

Oh - and more good news:

Just three days ago, actor Anthony Mackie announced he'll make his directorial debut with the film "Spark": a story on the life of Claudette Colvin.

Finally:

Claudette Colvin will - at last - get the recognition she's deserved for far too long.

Learn something new today?

Follow me @DavidZabinsky for more stories like this one.

I write threads about some of the important events and people that we weren't taught about in school.

Also, with the help of some remarkable entrepreneurs from all over the world, I'm fortunate enough to help tell stories of founders from the likes of The Gambia, Pakistan, Cameroon, Vietnam, and more on my podcast:

Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/7DUVRxuNP…

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Other great reads and videos on Claudette Colvin's story:

cbsnews.com/news/claudette…

oprahdaily.com/life/relations…

nytimes.com/2021/10/26/us/…

smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/cla…

npr.org/2009/03/15/101…

"Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice" by Phil Hoose

Here's the "Spark" announcement, featuring @AnthonyMackie:

becauseofthemwecan.com/blogs/news/ant…