The Montgomery Bus Boycott happened between December 1955 and December 1956. Many know about it, about how Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus for a white person and how that sparked a revolution. There are many of us who have heard this story in high school, but there are very few of us who know how it really started. There are many myths surrounding the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Ms. Rosa Parks was an amazing woman and political figure, but was she really the one started this revolution that would go down in history?
To start from the beginning, the Montgomery Bus Boycott was a period of time when African Americans refused to ride the public buses in Montgomery, Alabama. As you could imagine, this really affected the economy. There were a lot of black people, so for them to refuse giving money to these city-run racist institutions, well, that’s obviously going to have lasting effects. So, if Rosa Parks wasn’t the first to refuse to give up her seat, then why did she become of the face of the movement?
Rosa was very active with the youth of the time, she was the secretary for the NAACP and often spoke the young people about speaking up. She created a NAACP Youth Council in Montgomery and encouraged youths to speak out against segregation and write letters to officials.
Though Rosa Parks did refuse to give up her seat to a white person that day, December 1, 1955, she wasn’t the first one who’d done it. She wasn’t the one who initially sparked the period of passion that erupted in the African American community at that time. Claudette Colvin was a 15-year-old secretary of Montgomery’s NAACP Youth Council, and she was arrested for not giving up her seat to a white person on the bus on March 2, 1955. She was charged with assaulting and officer, even though all she did was violate segregation laws. This made it extremely hard for her to appeal. “’I was really afraid, because you just didn't know what white people might do at that time,' Colvin later said. After her minister paid her bail, she went home where she and her family stayed up all night out of concern for possible retaliation."
Just a 15-year-old, her arrest caused outrage within her community. Rosa Parks and the other council members raised money for her case and supported her, but the leaders in the town were worried that no one would sympathize with her because she was so poor, young, and dark skinned.
Claudette was born in 1539 in Montgomery, Alabama. When she was arrested, she was involved in the Browder v. Gayle trial that ultimately concluded that the segregated bus system in Montgomery was unconstitutional. Claudette was a great student, she worked hard to get good grades in school and she had dreams of even being president in the future.
“On March 2, 1955, Colvin was riding home on a city bus after school when a bus driver told her to give up her seat to a white passenger. She refused, saying, ‘It's my constitutional right to sit here as much as that lady. I paid my fare, it's my constitutional right.’ Colvin felt compelled to stand her ground. ‘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,’ she later told Newsweek.” -Biography.com
The NAACP thought that Claudette’s case could possibly be what they needed in order to challenge segregation laws, but they decided against it because she was too young. Only 15!
She couldn’t possibly handle all of the pressure that would come along with that, could she? Though it was important for things to keep progressing, they needed to think about Claudette as a human being first, because that’s what she was—a very young one. On top of her age, Claudette became pregnant around that time as well, and the NAACP thought that her being an unwed mother would bring a lot of negative attention to the case that they didn’t need.
The revolution was a process that was slow and steady, things had to be thought through. So, Rosa Parks was chosen to be the face of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. She was older, 42 years old actually, and she was better equipped to handle everything that would happen thereafter. She was also very concerned with Claudette when she was arrested. Rosa Parks' heart was filled with passion, so she was the perfect woman for the job. The rest is, well, history. Claudette moved to New York City and worked as a nurse’s aide before retiring.
Though Rosa Parks is seen as the heroine of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Claudette is the one who really started it all the day that she felt those two iconic, strong women on her shoulders, Harriett Tubman and Sojourner Truth. And, even though Parks will always be recognized and celebrated while Claudette remains unknown to most Americans, there are still people out there who appreciate and respect everything that she did to catapult the movement in the 50s. That is something that we should all be grateful for. Her small act of courage started something so much bigger, and she was only 15. You’re never too young to matter.
