"(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) CLAUDETTE COLVIN: My name is Claudette Colvin, and I was 15 years old when I was arrested for violating the Montgomery segregation law. Well, I was the kind of teenager that wore my hair in braids. Everybody else was battling with the straightening comb and pomade, and I didn't mind being different. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) COLVIN: Montgomery, it's a nice little Southern town, but everything was segregated. This is for colored folks and this is for white folks. Couldn't try on clothes in the store. Couldn't go to the movie theater when a good movie come in town."
"(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) PHILLIP HOOSE: My name is Phillip Hoose, and I wrote a book titled "Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice." March 2, 1955 was a Wednesday. Claudette got onto the bus with three other students, and they all settled themselves into a row in the middle of the bus. The rule back in Montgomery at that time was 10 seats in the front of the bus were for whites only, and the whites always had to be in front."
Claudette Colvin was 15 when she refused to give up her bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama on March 2, 1955, and was arrested under the city's segregation law. She had learned about Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth at her segregated high school and recognized the unfair double standards. Montgomery enforced ten front seats reserved for white passengers; Colvin boarded with three other students and sat in the middle of the bus. Segregation barred Black people from trying on clothes in stores and from attending many movie screenings. Colvin died at the age of 86, and her protest occurred months before Rosa Parks' action.
Read at www.npr.org
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