Little Known Black History Fact

Behind Every Ground-Breaker, There's Someone Who Carried the Pickax and Chose the Right Spot

“I knew then and I know now that, when it comes to justice, there is no easy way to get it. You can't sugarcoat it. You have to take a stand and say, 'This is not right.'” 

     The woman who made that statement was one of the many women who contributed to the desegregation of the transit system in Montgomery, Alabama. 

     I know, your mind is boggled, and you're sitting there sputtering "B-but, but it was Rosa P-p-parks who refused to give up her seat!" And you are right. Rosa Parks did refuse to give up her seat on the bus, and it was Rosa Parks who the nation rallied around when she was arrested for it. What a lot of people do not know is that Rosa Parks was not the first woman to perform that same act; as a matter of fact, Rosa Parks barely made the Top 10 (recorded) women to have done so!!

     The first recorded time a woman of color from Montgomery refused to give up her seat on the bus, it actually wasn't a woman at all, it was a 15 year old school girl named Claudette Colvin. She refused to give up her seat and was taken to jail 9 months before Rosa Parks. (Biography)

    Claudette Colvin was born in Montgomery, Alabama on September 5, 1939 to poor parents. She was a good student, earning mostly A's in her classes, and dreaming of making something of herself, like becoming president.

     "On March 2, 1955, Colvin was riding home on a city bus after school when a bus driver told her to give up her seat to a white passenger. She refused, saying, "It's my constitutional right to sit here as much as that lady. I paid my fare, it's my constitutional right." Colvin felt compelled to stand her ground. "I felt like Sojourner Truth was pushing down on one shoulder and Harriet Tubman was pushing down on the other—saying, 'Sit down girl!' I was glued to my seat," she later told Newsweek. " (Biography.com Editors, 2017)

     Colvin was arrested and jailed for violating segregation laws. She was out in a few hours though, her family's minister came and bailed her out. 

     So, the question is of course why Colvin was not the one that became the face of desegregation and civil rights. Leaders of the NAACP felt that she was too young for people to 'get behind', coupled with the fact that while waiting to go to court she'd become pregnant. They felt that was too negative an image to bring to the public, so they didn't publicize her case the way they did with Rosa Parks.

     When Colvin went to court she pled not guilty to the charges, but the court convicted her and put her on probation. This did not stop Fred Gray and Charles D. Langford from making her one of the plaintiffs (Aurelia S. Browder, Susie McDonald and Mary Louise Smith Jeanatta Reese were the others) in the Browder vs. Gayle (Gayle was the city's mayor) case, which was a suit filed on behalf of the African American women who had been penalized for not giving up their seats to a white person. 

     Claudette Colvin moved to New York shortly after the case was settled and Montgomery's segregation of public transit was ruled unconstitutional. 

     "While her role in the fight to end segregation in Montgomery may not be widely recognized, Colvin helped advance civil rights efforts in the city." (Biography) A lot of people who knew about her case felt encouraged by it; it gave them such a sense of accomplishment and pride that by the time Rosa Parks came along they were more than ready to take up the charge. 

REFERENCES

Biography.com Editors (February 10, 2017). Claudette Colvin Biography. The Biography.com Website. Retrieved from http://www.biography.com/people/claudette-colvin-11378

DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed in this blog are strictly those of the blog author, and in no way express the views of Biography.com, Blogger, Google or any other entity (i.e. news services) whose content and/or services may have been accessed for use in this blog. 

Today In Black History (and a Little of My Opinion)

It’s ironic that the whole Darren Wilson/Michael Brown thing should be going on right now. Many people are holding up cases like this one and others (Trayvon Martin, Eric Gardner, Tamir Rice) as evidence that blacks have not come as far as they thought they had in the fight for equality, that all the ground we thought we’d gained has actually been nothing but a mere footstep. (And some feel that we’re being pushed back so that we lose that footstep!) It’s just sad, that on a day like today when we should be commemorating how far this country has come toward equality for all, we are instead commiserating with parents whose children have been snatched away from them by a police system that was supposed to be in place “To Protect and Serve”.

Today in Black History, in 1955, an event occurred which at the time seemed momentous; an event that sparked the flame that was The Civil Rights Movement. December 1, 1955 was the day that one lone young woman made a decision which, at the time, didn’t seem like it would generate the national controversy that followed.

Rosa Parks at work

Rosa Parks on the bus

Rosa Parks mug shot

On this day in black history a young lady, tired from a long day at work, took a seat on a Metro bus and prepared herself for the ride home. What she didn’t prepare herself for was to be screamed at, called names, taken to jail like a common criminal, and then hailed as a national hero for helping to launch the civil rights struggle into the country’s collective consciousness. The woman?

The woman was Rosa Parks, who went from an unknown faceless black woman in the back of the bus to a woman with a mug shot, whose face was known everywhere and by everyone in the time it took to ride the bus home. She didn’t want the fame, or the notariety, but when it was thrust upon her she didn’t shirk her reponsibility.      

So many people are up in arms about what’s happened in Ferguson, and unfortunately many of them are resorting to looting and burning, as if that is going to change anything… imo, it not only won’t effect any positive changes, it further cements the stereotypical picture that white America already has. The few strides we had made did not come about because of violence, they came about through the work of peaceful activists like Martin Luther King. They didn’t come about through big  “die-ins”, where large numbers of people suffered financially and feared for their lives, where there was no regard for who the owners of those stores were or what their sympathies were. Those strides came about through certain stores/bus companies/restaurants which were known to discriminate being boycotted, and staging peaceful sit-ins; no violence, no threats, no profanity, just quiet dignity. What Rosa Parks did led to public transportation being integrated so that everyone could ride in any seat on the bus they chose without fear of being told to move, or risking arrest or even a beating, and she did not even set out to do it! She was merely a tired woman who had worked hard that day and didn’t see why she should have to get up.

The young men that have been killed, the men and women who have been abused by the police department, we should not mar their memories with all this violence and unrest. For the parents to specifically ask that people not link their son’s name with all the rioting, and for those people to ignore their pleas… well, it just makes me so sad. This is how her son will be remembered.

We should be commemorating the struggle that was fought for us so many years ago; remembering the people like Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks; carrying on their work, instead of taking part in this mindless, useless, violence.

On this day in Black History, a tired young woman named Rosa Parks sat quietly in a bus seat, and forever changed the way the country treated black people.