Black History: Claudette Colvin

Claudette Colvin was born on September 5, 1939, in Montgomery, Alabama. Months before Rosa Parks, in 1955, at the young at of 15 years old, Claudette Colvin stood up against segregation when a bus driver told her to give up her seat to a white passenger. In an interview Colvin said that she felt compelled to stand her ground stating, “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.” In 1956, Claudette Colvin became one of the four plaintiffs in the Browder v. Gayle case. The decision from the case ruled that Montgomery’s segregated bus system was unconstitutional.