"Claudette Colvin, who became an US civil rights pioneer after her detention for refusing to give up her seat to a white woman on a segregated bus in Alabama in 1955, has died aged 86, her foundation has said. She was just 15 when she carried out her protest in the city of Montgomery against the segregation laws, several months before Rosa Parks defied them in much the same manner in the same city, an incident that has received more historical attention."
"Colvin's act on March 2, 1955, was partly informed by what she had learned studying Black history at school. "My mindset was on freedom," Colvin said in 2021 of her defiance. "So I was not going to move that day, she said. "I told them that history had me glued to the seat." Her refusal came after the driver of the bus taking her home from high school ordered Black passengers to give up their seats to white passengers,"
Claudette Colvin died aged 86. At 15, on March 2, 1955, she refused to give up her seat on a segregated Montgomery bus. Her refusal was influenced by studying Black history and a personal commitment to freedom; she said history had her "glued to the seat." The bus driver had ordered Black passengers to relinquish seats because the white section was full, and a white passenger refused to sit opposite. Colvin was briefly jailed for disturbing the peace. In 1956 she was one of four plaintiffs in a successful lawsuit that challenged and helped end segregation on public transportation. Her act received less attention than Rosa Parks's later protest. Her juvenile criminal record was expunged in 2021.
Read at www.dw.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]