Before Rosa Parks, there was Claudette Colvin

Inspired by Claudette Colvin, the spark that ignited the Montgomery bus boycott movement and inspired youth.

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 was Claudette Colvin, a 15-year-old schoolgirl, who on March 2, 1955, refused to move to the back of the bus nine months before Rosa Parks.

Claudette was also one of the four women who successfully challenged the bus segregation laws in Montgomery and Alabama in the Browder v Gayle case.

Inspired by Claudette Colvin, but not recognized

Ms. Colvin, however, was not chosen to be the “face” of the Montgomery County bus boycott and is reported to have stated,

“Let the people know Rosa Parks was the right person for the boycott. But also let them know that the attorneys took four other women to the Supreme Court to challenge the law that led to the end of segregation.” [1]

NAACP and other Black organizations felt Rosa Parks made a better icon for the movement than a teenager because Parks was secretary of the NAACP.

She was well-known and respected and people would associate her with the middle class that would attract support for the cause.

In a rare 2009 interview with the New York Times after a children’s book about Colvin won a National Book Award — one of only a few Colvin has given — she put it this way.

“My mother told me to be quiet about what I did,” Ms. Colvin recalled. “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.’ ”

Struggles are often fought by young people, more than half of which are women. The battle continues every day through Black Lives Matter and other social justice groups.

[1]  “Before Rosa Parks, A Teenager Defied Segregation On An Alabama Bus”. Retrieved 7 December 2017.

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