Claudette Colvin (18 page)

The decision, which took all of ten minutes to make, was announced on June 19, 1956. Shocked, Mayor Gayle declared that the city would appeal the case to the U.S.
Supreme Court. But protesters rejoiced in a mass meeting at the Holt Street Baptist Church, a celebration tempered by the realization that they would have to keep walking at least until the city's appeal reached Washington. The case probably wouldn't be considered until fall. And there was no guarantee even then that the Supreme Court would agree with the Alabama judges.

The day after the court's announcement, Judge Johnson opened an envelope from the morning's mail and unfolded an unsigned letter. It read:

If I had been in your shoes before I would have ruled [
sic
] as you did, I would rather have had my right arm cut off. I trust that you will get on your knees and pray to Almighty God to forgive you for the mistake that you have made.

It was just the first of many hate-filled letters and phone calls he would soon receive.

C
LAUDETTE
:
I heard about the court decision on the news. Nobody called to tell me. By then I didn't have much time for celebrating anyway. I had been kicked out of school and I had a three-month-old baby. My dream of being a lawyer was gone. I needed money so badly, and I was worn out trying to figure out how to get my life back.

When you're a teenager and you first get pregnant, you can't understand the reality of raising a child, especially if you don't have the father to help out or even talk to you. I had no idea how much work there would be and how much money I would need. I didn't have to pay rent to Mom and Dad, but I did have to pay for food and clothing and help with utility bills. My dad wasn't working, and my mom made three dollars a day.

I hoped maybe some of the boycott leaders would understand my situation and help me, after what I had done. Deep inside I hoped maybe they would give me a
baby shower. I needed money and support so badly. But I didn't hear from any of them after I left the courthouse. Not Fred Gray. Not Rosa Parks. Not Jo Ann Robinson. No one called after I testified. I knew they couldn't put me up onstage like the queen of the boycott, but after what I had done, why did they have to turn their backs on me?

Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr. “The strength of the Constitution,” he said, “lies in its flexibility”

I knew the answer: I was shunned because I had gotten pregnant. It was made worse because my parents wouldn't let me just explain, “This is what happened and here's who the father is.” Anyone could have understood, but I had promised my parents, so I kept it to myself. But because Raymond was light-skinned, and I wouldn't name the father, they all assumed the father was white. Socially, I had three strikes against me: I was an unmarried teenager with a light-skinned baby. Without school, I had no circle of friends my age, and there was no way any of the women in town would accept me. To them I was a fallen woman.

But I wasn't ashamed of myself. I knew I wasn't a bad person. A more experienced and much older man took advantage of me when I was at my very lowest. I got caught up in a mistake, yes, but that's all it was—a mistake. The people closest to me didn't give up on me. They held on to me. Q.P. and Mary Ann loved me, and so did Mama Sweetie and Velma. They never forgot the good things about me. My pastor, Reverend Johnson, supported me. And Baby Tell, my mom's best friend from Pine Level, was wonderful. Every second Sunday during my pregnancy I would go out in the country and stay with her. She would make the bed for me and read me to sleep from the Bible. She made a long little flannel gown for my baby, embroidered all the way around with the colors of the rainbow. And of course I had Raymond. He was a happy little fella. I was loved.

When the court decision came down, of course I felt joy for my people and pride for what I had done, but my day-to-day problems overwhelmed me. The thing that
was constantly in the front of my mind was: How can I get started again? How in this world can I pick myself up?

T
HROUGHOUT THE SUMMER OF
1956
, Montgomery's mayor, councilors, and other officials tried everything they could to crush the boycott. They singled out Dr. King among the 115 blacks who had received indictments and went after him, accusing him of organizing an illegal boycott. The NAACP sent reinforcements from New York to help Fred Gray and other local attorneys defend Dr. King, but it was no use. Dr. King was found guilty by Judge Eugene Carter, the same judge who had ruled in Claudette's appeal. Carter sentenced King to pay five hundred dollars and serve one year of hard labor in prison.

Reporters flocked to Montgomery from all over the world to report the dramatic racial showdown. Some frustrated whites complained that their leaders were all talk and that it was time to take matters into their own hands. If they didn't act now, blacks would soon control the city. On the sweltering night of August 25, 1956, someone lit the fuse to several sticks of dynamite and lobbed them into the front yard of the Reverend Robert S. Graetz, the white pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church. The blast shattered the windows and rocked the walls of houses throughout the neighborhood. The Graetz family was spared only because they were away.

Summer and early fall brought more terror, more death threats, more hate mail and midnight phone calls—and frustration. Segregationists never seemed to run out of ideas or the money to carry them out. The White Citizens Council sought to pull insurance coverage from the MIA's fleet of station wagons. City officials asked a state court to ban the car pool, claiming it was an unlicensed transportation system.

On Tuesday, November 13, Dr. King and other leaders sat in a courtroom, dejectedly listening to the city's lawyers tell a clearly sympathetic judge that the boycott was illegal and should be outlawed. During a recess in the trial, Dr. King turned around and noticed Mayor Gayle, Commissioner Sellers, and two attorneys quickly disappearing into a back room. Several reporters hustled in and out of the same room. Something strange was going on.

Then one of the reporters walked up to King and handed him a news bulletin that
had just come in. King read it and later wrote, “My heart began to throb with inexpressible joy.” The U.S. Supreme Court had just affirmed the lower court's ruling in
Browder v. Gayle
. They had won! Word raced through the courtroom. One man rose and shouted, “God Almighty has spoken from Washington, D.C.!” Judge Carter banged his gavel for order. And then, in one last, utterly futile gesture, Carter ruled that the MIA car pool was illegal and must stop operating. It was all beside the point now. A team of creative lawyers and four tough women—two of them teenagers—had just booted Jim Crow off the buses.

Mayor Gayle vowed that the city would hold out until the very end, meaning until someone representing the United States actually showed up in Montgomery and delivered the Supreme Court's order to integrate the buses. And now, because of Judge Carter's ruling, the boycott was illegal. At a mass meeting, King announced that, until the Supreme Court's order arrived, “we will continue to walk and share rides with friends.” He supposed it would take “three or four days.”

Five weeks later, on December 20—381 days after the boycott had started—two federal marshals arrived at the federal courthouse and served written notices on city officials that Montgomery's buses had to be integrated. “I guess we'll have to abide by it,” Mayor Gayle sighed, “because it's the law.”

Many boycott participants would forever remember where they were when they heard the news. “I was cooking . . . when they made the announcement on the radio,” recalled Georgia Gilmore. “I ran outside and there was my neighbor and she said yes, and we were so happy. We . . . had accomplished something that no one ever thought would happen in the city of Montgomery. Being able to ride the bus and sit anyplace that you desire.”

At 5:55 the next morning, Dr. King and four other leaders, none of whom were plaintiffs in
Browder v. Gayle
, stepped aboard the open door to an empty bus at a stop near King's home and dropped
coins into the fare box. When the white bus driver recognized the famous man coming through the door, he smiled and said, “I believe you are Reverend King, aren't you?”

“Yes, I am,” King answered.

“We are glad to have you this morning,” said the driver.

December 21, 1956, the first day of integrated bus service in Montgomery: (front) Rev. Ralph Abernathy and Inez Baskin of the
Montgomery Advertiser
; (back) Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rev. Glenn Smiley