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Claudette is Born
Claudette Colvin was born on September 5, 1939 in Montgomery, AL, unfortunately her parents, Mary Jane Gadson and C.P. Austin, could not support Claudette financially so she was adopted by, Mary Anne and Q.P. Colvin, her great aunt and uncle. -
Claudette's Home Life
Claudette grew up in a poor black neighborhood in Montgomery, AL. she had two sisters, Delphine and Velma. Unfortunately, Delphine died of polio two days before Claudette's 13th birthday. -
Claudette's Everyday Life
Claudette attended Booker T. Washington High School, where she had been learning about the civil rights movement in school. Claudette relied on city transportation to go to and from school, since her parents did not own a car. The majority of customers on the bus system were African-American, but they were discriminated against by its custom of segregated seating. Claudette was also a member of the NAACP Youth Council. -
The Thoughts of Claudette During the Bus Incident
When Claudette refused to move, she was thinking about a school paper she had written that day about the local custom that prohibited blacks from using the dressing rooms in order to try on clothes in department stores. Claudette said, "History kept me stuck to my seat. I felt the hand of Harriet Tubman pushing down on one shoulder and Sojourner Truth pushing down on the other." -
After Claudette is Arrested
While Claudette was being forcefully removed from her seat and arrested she was yelling that "It's my constitutional right!" and that her rights were being violated. In the car, one of the police officers sat in the backseat with Claudette which made her scared she would be sexually harassed since it happened very commonly at the time. The officers who took her to the station also made sexual comments about her body throughout the ride. -
Bus Incident
9 months before Rosa Parks refused to move from her seat on the bus, Claudette was returning home from school on March 2, 1955, where she sat in the colored section about two seats away from an emergency exit. When the white seats got full the bus driver told Claudette and 3 other black women to move, the three other women moved but Claudette refused, Claudette was then forcefully removed by 2 police officers. -
Claudette's Trial
Claudette had her trial where she was represented by Fred Gray, a lawyer for the Montgomery Improvement Association, which was organizing civil rights actions. Claudette was convicted with disturbing the peace, violating the segregation laws, and battering and assaulting a police officer in juvenile court. -
Claudette's Case is Appealed
4 days after Claudette's trial, Claudette's case was appealed to the Montgomery Circuit Court, and the charges of disturbing the peace and violating the segregation laws were dropped, although her conviction for assaulting a police officer was upheld. -
Claudette's First Child
Claudette gave birth to her son, Raymond, on March 1956 -
Browder vs. Gayle
Claudette worked on a case, Browder vs Gayle, with Aurelia S. Browder, Susie McDonald, Mary Louise Smith, and Jeanetta Reese, although Jeanetta later resigned from the case. The United States District Court ruled the state of Alabama and Montgomery's bus segregation laws were unconstitutional. The court ordered Montgomery and the state of Alabama to end bus segregation permanently. -
Claudette Moves To New York
Claudette left Montgomery for New York City in 1958 because she had difficulty finding and keeping work following her participation in the federal court case that overturned bus segregation. Claudette stated she was branded a troublemaker by many in her community. She then dropped out of college. -
Life in New York
In New York, Claudette and Raymond lived with Claudette's sister, Velma, Claudette got a job in 1969 as a nurse's aide in a nursing home in Manhattan. She worked there for 35 years, retiring in 2004. While in New York, Claudette also had her second son, Randy Colvin. -
Claudette's Life Now
Claudette Colvin is an 81-year-old retiree, who lives in the Bronxx, and not much more is known about where she is in life now. -
Additional Notes
The reason many people have not heard of Claudette is because most people didn't want to use Claudette's story to use her as a figure because black organizations believed that Rosa Parks would be a better figure for a test case for integration because she was an adult, had a job, and had a middle-class appearance. They felt she had the maturity to handle being at the center of potential controversy.