WILMINGTON - In 1955, a young African-American woman took a seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama.
Like most public services at the time, bus transportation in Alabama was heavily segregated and contained a “whites-only” section and a “colored” section.
Although this young woman initially sat in the colored section, it was required that any minorities move further back in the bus should the whites-only section fill up.
She would have to stand if there were no more seats available.
As fate would have it, a white woman boarded the bus when there were no more whites-only seats open.
The bus driver demanded that the young African-American woman vacate her seat for the white woman.
She refused.
The bus driver threatened to get a policeman if she wouldn’t give up her seat.
She didn’t move.
The police were notified, boarded the bus, and forcibly removed the young African-American woman from the seat and the bus itself.
Witnesses say that she was yelling, “It’s my constitutional right!” as she was handcuffed and arrested.
Her charges included disturbing the peace, violating segregation laws, and assault.
She was eventually bailed out of jail by her reverend, who told the young woman that she had “brought the ‘Revolution’ to Montgomery.”
However, that revolution would not capture the attention of the nation until nine months later when Rosa Parks famously refused to give up her seat on a bus in the same city of Montgomery, Alabama.
Claudette Colvin, a 15-year-old student at the local Booker T. Washington segregated school in Montgomery was the first to challenge the norms of the day by refusing to relinquish her rights as a citizen and not moving from her bus seat.
The incident caught the attention of the local Montgomery, Alabama NAACP chapter, for which Rosa Parks was secretary.
It was determined that Rosa, not Colvin, would be better suited as the face of integration - she was an adult and had the necessary appearance to look middle class.
So, on December 1st, 1955, a full nine months after Claudette’s initial stand, Rosa Parks repeated the experiment on a local Montgomery, Alabama bus and would go on to ignite the Civil Rights Movement itself.
Although Claudette Colvin rarely receives the recognition that Rosa Parks gets, it should not be forgotten that one person can truly make a difference in the ways of the world, but there always has to be that true “first” person to do so.
