By Don Valentine
The Bus Boycott in Montgomery began in 1955. It was initiated 9 months prior to the well documented protest by Rosa Parks. A 15 year spunky Claudette Colvin had the temerity to tell the White bus driver she would not relinquish her seat. In an interview with Newsweek she said, “It’s my constitutional right to sit here as much as that lady. I paid my fare, it’s my constitutional right to sit here as much as that lady.” That was a courageous stand by the young sophomore. “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.” old
Biography.com chronicled her arrest, “Colvin was arrested on several charges, including violating the city’s segregation laws. For several hours, she sat in jail, completely terrified. ‘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.” It was a peaceful night and Claudette appeared in court on March 18, 1955. She was represented, pro bono by Fred Gray, an upcoming Black civil rights attorney. The court sentenced her to indefinite probation and declared her to be a ward of the state.
The conviction stirred local community members to initiate a boycott. Stanford University King Institute wrote, “The Women’s Political Council (WPC), had already voiced their concerns to city commissioners about the city bus line’s poor treatment of Blacks and sought a test case to serve as a catalyst for a large local boycott. The WPC, however, did not choose her to be that test case. Colvin and other community activists felt that this was likely due to her youth, her dark skin, and the fact that she was pregnant at the time by a married man.”
A tremendous amount of planning went into the details of selecting the protagonist for the boycott, and it led to N.A.A.C.P. secretary Rosa Parks. The Montgomery Advertiser outlined the logistics: “‘The Boycott didn’t happen by accident,’” legendary civil rights attorney Fred Gray said during a recent interview. “‘It took meticulous planning and thought. It wasn’t something that came together overnight. It took discipline and smart people.’ Gray was one of the primary figures in that planning, and he served as Parks’ attorney after her arrest.”
After Rosa’s arrest the wheels of justice slowly arrived at the Supreme Court in the case of Browder vs. Gayle. Mr. Gray was the lead attorney of the case and was assisted by future Justice Thurgood Marshall. It was decided not to include Rosa in the case to avoid confusion that they were trying to circumvent her prosecution on other charges. The four plaintiffs ironically included Claudette. The court ruled that bus segregation was not constitutional and history was made!
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