

#Unity projects angry bots free
If the bus became so crowded that all the "white seats" in the front of the bus were filled until white people were standing, any African Americans were supposed to get up from nearby seats to make room for whites, move further to the back, and stand in the aisle if there were no free seats in that section. She sat in the colored section about two seats away from an emergency exit, in a Capitol Heights bus. On March 2, 1955, she was returning home from school. Colvin was a member of the NAACP Youth Council and had been learning about the civil rights movement in school. The majority of customers on the bus system were African American, but they were discriminated against by its custom of segregated seating. She relied on the city's buses to get to and from school because her family did not own a car. In 1955, Colvin was a student at the segregated Booker T. She was also a member of the NAACP Youth Council, where she formed a close relationship with her mentor, Rosa Parks. Despite being a good student, Colvin had difficulty connecting with her peers in school due to grief. Not long after, in September 1952, Colvin started attending Booker T. Two days before Colvin's 13th birthday, Delphine died of polio. When Colvin was eight years old, the Colvins moved to King Hill, a poor black neighborhood in Montgomery where she spent the rest of her childhood. When they took Claudette in, the Colvins lived in Pine Level, a small country town in Montgomery County, the same town where Rosa Parks grew up. Colvin and her sister referred to the Colvins as their parents and took their last name.


Colvin whose daughter, Velma Colvin, had already moved out. So, Colvin and her younger sister, Delphine, were taken in by their great aunt and uncle, Mary Anne and Q. When Austin abandoned the family, Gadson was unable to financially support her children.

The record of her arrest and adjudication of delinquency was expunged by the district court in 2021, with the support of the district attorney for the county in which the charges were brought more than 66 years before.Ĭlaudette Colvin was born Claudette Austin in Montgomery, Alabama, on September 5, 1939, to Mary Jane Gadson and C. They'd call her a bad girl, and her case wouldn't have a chance." Rosa Parks stated: "If the white press got ahold of that information, they would have a field day. It is now widely accepted that Colvin was not accredited by civil rights campaigners at the time due to her circumstances. Colvin has said, "Young people think Rosa Parks just sat down on a bus and ended segregation, but that wasn't the case at all." Colvin's case was dropped by civil rights campaigners because Colvin was unmarried and pregnant during the proceedings. The Montgomery bus boycott was then called off after a few months.įor many years, Montgomery's black leaders did not publicize Colvin's pioneering effort. One month later, the Supreme Court affirmed the order to Montgomery and the state of Alabama to end bus segregation. The case went to the United States Supreme Court on appeal by the state, and it upheld the district court's ruling on November 13, 1956. On June 13, 1956, the judges determined that the state and local laws requiring bus segregation in Alabama were unconstitutional. In a United States district court, she testified before the three-judge panel that heard the case. Gayle, to challenge bus segregation in the city. Ĭolvin was one of five plaintiffs in the first federal court case filed by civil rights attorney Fred Gray on February 1, 1956, as Browder v. This occurred nine months before the more widely known incident in which Rosa Parks, secretary of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP), helped spark the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott. On March 2, 1955, she was arrested at the age of 15 in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her seat to a white woman on a crowded, segregated bus. Arrested at the age of 15 in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her seat to a white woman on a segregated bus, nine months before the similar Rosa Parks incident.Ĭlaudette Colvin (born Claudette Austin September 5, 1939) is an American pioneer of the 1950s civil rights movement and retired nurse aide.
