Claudette Colvin (6 page)

The children involved in the landmark civil rights lawsuit
Brown v. Board of Education
, which challenged segregation in public schools, in Topeka, Kansas, 1953: (left to right) Vicki Henderson, Donald Henderson, Linda Brown (the Brown of the case's name), James Emanuel, Nancy Todd, and Katherine Carper

Miss Nesbitt made us see that we had a history, too—that our story didn't begin by being captured and chained and thrown onto a boat. There had been life and culture before that. She related literature back to our lives. She would ask, “Why do we celebrate the Fourth of July—Independence Day—when we are still in slavery?” “Why are there no black people except Sammy Davis, Jr., and Pearl Bailey on TV?”

I had Miss Nesbitt in both tenth and eleventh grades, and during those years I grew in confidence. In those two years she challenged many assumptions I had taken for granted. She said, “There's no such thing as ‘good hair'—hair is just hair. Everyone is born with the hair they have and you just do the best you can with it.” Same with skin color. She wanted us to love whatever color we were. Our history teacher, Miss Josie Lawrence, was the blackest teacher in the whole school, but she had the
same attitude. She'd say, “I'm a real African. I'm a pure-blooded African.” She was proud of it. She taught us all the different nations of Africa and the periods of African history. It all made sense to me. I wasn't ashamed of my thick lips and broad nose and coarse hair. I had always thought God made our features so we could be comfortable in the hot African sun.

Little by little, I began to form a mission for myself. I was going be like Harriet Tubman and go North to liberate my people. I admired Harriet Tubman more than anyone else I read about—her courage, the pistol she wore, the fact that she never lost a passenger on the Underground Railroad. I wasn't going to go to Alabama State College, where they taught you how to teach school but didn't teach you how to get your freedom. We had nothing but preachers and teachers in the South. I was going to do something different. I was going to be a lawyer. My mom always said I could outtalk any forty lawyers—I agreed it would be a good fit.

In 1955, my junior year, Miss Nesbitt and Miss Lawrence team-taught Negro History Week. We really got into it. We spent that whole February talking about the injustices we black people suffered every day in Montgomery—it was total immersion. My parents had only gone to sixth grade—they'd never had a chance for a class discussion like that. So I was grateful for it, and totally receptive. I was done talking about “good hair” and “good skin” but not addressing our grievances. I was tired of adults complaining about how badly they were treated and not doing anything about it. I'd had enough of just feeling angry about Jeremiah Reeves. I was tired of hoping for justice.

When my moment came, I was ready.

A Birmingham, Alabama, city bus. Two separate worlds within one vehicle

Early in life, I had learned that if you want something, you had better make some noise
.          —Malcolm X

March 2, 1955

C
LAUDETTE AND HER CLASSMATES
got out of school early that Wednesday because of a faculty meeting. When she stepped outside, the afternoon air was warm and muggy, already like summer. Claudette spotted some friends and ran to catch up with them. The group walked together for a few blocks, then got on the Highland Gardens bus at Dexter Avenue and Bainbridge Street. She handed the driver her pink coupon, which allowed a student to ride for five cents—half fare. Since there were no whites in the front of the bus, she and her classmates walked straight down the aisle without getting off.

Claudette slid into a window seat on the left side, near the exit door and about halfway back. A schoolmate plopped down beside her, and two other Booker T. Washington students took the seats across the aisle in the same row. Balancing her textbooks on her lap, Claudette settled back and gazed absently out the window as the bus pulled away from the curb.

As the bus moved east along Dexter Avenue, the seats filled up block by block with white passengers getting off work from the downtown stores and offices. The ten front seats went quickly, and soon riders were standing in the aisle, keeping their balance
by clutching poles as the bus stopped and started. Just before they reached Court Square, Claudette realized that a white woman was standing in the aisle between the four seats in her row. Clearly the woman expected Claudette and her three schoolmates to vacate the entire row so she could sit down in one of the seats.

C
LAUDETTE:
The motorman looked up in his mirror and said, “I need those seats.” I might have considered getting up if the woman had been elderly, but she wasn't. She looked about forty. The other three girls in my row got up and moved back, but I didn't. I just couldn't.

Rebellion was on my mind that day. All during February we'd been talking about people who had taken stands. We had been studying the Constitution in Miss Nesbitt's class. I knew I had rights. I had paid my fare the same as white passengers. I knew the rule—that you didn't have to get up for a white person if there were no empty seats left on the bus—and there weren't. But it wasn't about that. I was thinking, Why should I have to get up just because a driver tells me to, or just because I'm black? Right then, I decided I wasn't gonna take it anymore. I hadn't planned it out, but my decision was built on a lifetime of nasty experiences.

After the other students got up, there were three empty seats in my row, but that white woman still wouldn't sit down—not even across the aisle from me. That was the whole point of the segregation rules—it was all symbolic—blacks had to be
behind
whites. If she sat down in the same row as me, it meant I was as good as her. So she had to keep standing until I moved back. The motorman yelled again, louder: “Why are you still sittin' there?” I didn't get up, and I didn't answer him. It got real quiet on the bus. A white rider yelled from the front, “You got to get up!” A girl named Margaret Johnson answered from the back, “She ain't got to do nothin' but stay black and die.”

The white woman kept standing over my seat. The driver shouted, “Gimme that seat!” then “Get up, gal!” I stayed in my seat, and I didn't say a word.

E
XASPERATED BY
C
LAUDETTE'S NONRESPONSE
, the driver pushed on to Court Square, Montgomery's major downtown transfer station for city buses. In the late afternoon rush hour, scores of weary passengers were lined up behind signs reading “Colored” and “White.”

At Court Square, the driver snapped open the doors and hollered for a transit policeman to come inside and make an arrest. Seconds later, a uniformed officer clambered aboard and the driver pointed down the aisle at Claudette. “It's her,” he said.

During these moments as the bus idled, several passengers boarded through the rear door. One, a pregnant woman whom Claudette recognized as her neighbor Mrs. Hamilton, sat down heavily in the empty seat next to Claudette. Of course, Mrs. Hamilton was totally unaware of the standoff between Claudette and the driver. All she knew was that for some reason a policeman was coming her way. When he arrived, the officer saw that now there were
two
blacks seated in the disputed row. He ordered both women to rise. Mrs. Hamilton replied that she didn't feel like getting up. Claudette also refused.

All eyes turned to the policeman. As much as he might have wanted to evict Claudette, he hesitated to bully a pregnant woman. Cocking a thumb toward Mrs. Hamilton, he addressed a group of black men seated in the rear. “If any of you are not gentleman enough to give this lady a seat,” he said, “you should be put in jail yourselves.” Two men rose and scrambled off the trouble-filled bus. Mrs. Hamilton slowly walked back and took one of their seats. Now Claudette was again alone in her row.

The officer ordered her to get up. Again Claudette refused. He returned to the driver and explained that as a transit policeman he lacked the authority to make an arrest. The doors closed behind him as he stepped down into the street and the bus pulled away again. One block north, at the intersection of Bibb and Commerce streets, a squad car was waiting. This time, when the Highland Gardens bus door opened, two Montgomery city policemen climbed aboard. Passengers held their breath.