Few people know the story of Claudette Colvin: When she was 15, she
refused to move to the back of the bus and give up her seat to a white
person — nine months before Rosa Parks did the very same thing.
Most
people know about Parks and the Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott that
began in 1955, but few know that there were a number of women who
refused to give up their seats on the same bus system. Most of the women
were quietly fined, and no one heard much more.
Retiree Claudette Colvin was 15 the day she refused to give
up her seat on the bus. "My head was just too full of black history, you
know, the oppression that we went through," she says.
Courtesy of Alean Bowser
