Speaker 1: It's time for the Way Black History Fact and Today's
Speaker 1: Way Black History Fact is sponsored by Major Threads for
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Speaker 1: sharing with you from biography dot com. Claudette Colvin is
Speaker 1: a civil rights activist who before Rosa Parks, refused to
Speaker 1: give up her bus seat to a white passenger. She
Speaker 1: was arrested and became one of four plaintiffs and Browder
Speaker 1: versus Gail, which ruled that montgomery segregated bus system was unconstitutional.
Speaker 1: Colvin later moved to New York City and worked as
Speaker 1: a nurse's aide. She retired in two thousand and four.
Speaker 1: Colvin was born on September fifth, nineteen thirty nine, in Montgomery, Alabama.
Speaker 1: Growing up in one of Montgomery's poorer neighborhoods, Colvin studied
Speaker 1: hard in school, shared mostly a's in her classes, and
Speaker 1: aspired to become president. One day, on March second, nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty five, Colvin was riding home on a city bus
Speaker 1: after school when a bus driver told her to give
Speaker 1: up her seat to a white passenger. She refused, saying, quote,
Speaker 1: it's my constitutional right to sit here as much as
Speaker 1: that lady. I'd paid my fare. It's my constitutional right.
Speaker 1: Colvin felt compelled to stand her ground. Quote I felt
Speaker 1: like Sojourner Truth was pushing down on one shoulder and
Speaker 1: Harriet Tubman was pushing down on the other, saying sit down, girl.
Speaker 1: I was glued to my seat, she later told Newsweek.
Speaker 1: After her refusal to give up her seed, Colvin was
Speaker 1: arrested on several charges, including violating the city segregation laws.
Speaker 1: For several hours, she sat in jail completely terrified. Quote.
Speaker 1: I was really afraid because you just didn't know what
Speaker 1: white people might do at that time. Colvin later said.
Speaker 1: After her minister paid her bail, she went home, where
Speaker 1: she and her family stayed up all night out of
Speaker 1: concern for possible retaliation and court. Colvin opposed the segregation
Speaker 1: law by declaring herself not guilty. The court, however, ruled
Speaker 1: against her and put her on probation. Despite the light sentence,
Speaker 1: Calvin could not escape the court of public opinion. The
Speaker 1: once quiet student was branded a troublemaker by some, and
Speaker 1: she had to drop out of college. Her reputation also
Speaker 1: made it impossible for her to find a job. The
Speaker 1: NAACP briefly considered using Colvin's case to challenge the segregation laws,
Speaker 1: but they decided against it because of her age. She
Speaker 1: also had become pregnant, and they thought an unwed mother
Speaker 1: would attract too much negative attention in a public legal battle.
Speaker 1: Her son, Raymond, was born in March nineteen fifty six.
Speaker 1: Despite her personal challenges, she became one of the four
Speaker 1: plaintiffs in the Browder versus Gail case, along with Aurelia
Speaker 1: I believe s Browder, Susie McDonald, and Mary Louise Smith.
Speaker 1: Jeanetta Reese, who was initially named a plaintiff in the case,
Speaker 1: withdrew early due to outside pressure. The decision in the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty six case, which had been filed by Fred
Speaker 1: Gray and Charles D. Langford on behalf of the aforementioned
Speaker 1: African American women, ruled that Montgomery's segregated bus system was
Speaker 1: un constitutional. Two years later, Colvin moved to New York City,
Speaker 1: where she had her second son, Randy, and worked as
Speaker 1: a nurse's aide at a Manhattan nursing home again. She
Speaker 1: retired in two thousand and four. So just a neat
Speaker 1: little fun fact for folks that were unaware that Rosa
Speaker 1: Parks wasn't the first one to refuse to give up
Speaker 1: her bus seat. That was something that a lot of
Speaker 1: folks had gone through. She was just the most visible one.
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of people it's hard to imagine
Speaker 1: what it's like to live in a segregated society. But
Speaker 1: you know, I want to remind folks that there are
Speaker 1: a lot of people who are still alive right now,
Speaker 1: people who are affected by the most recent election that
Speaker 1: come from a time in this country's history where they
Speaker 1: saw how a significant number of the population acted and
Speaker 1: behaved toward black people. But for a lot of those folks,
Speaker 1: it feels like okay, politics as usual, and that is heartbreaking. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a way black hass striefect