Claudette Colvin Doesn’t Give Up Her Seat

March 2, 1955. Claudette Colvin and her classmates are let out early from school. They hop on a bus heading toward downtown Montgomery and sit in the back section, reserved for Black riders. Before long, there’s a white woman standing in the aisle, expecting them to give up their seats. 15-year-old Colvin refuses, and she’s arrested that day—nine months before an almost identical act of defiance from activist Rosa Parks will ignite the Montgomery bus boycott and the modern Civil Rights movement. Who is Claudette Colvin? And how does her story reveal the broader picture behind a protest that would change the nation?

Special thanks to our guests, Nelson Malden; Dr. Kimberley Brown Pellum, author of Black Beauties: African American Pageant Queens in the Segregated South; and Dr. Bettye Collier-Thomas, author of Jesus, Jobs, and Justice: African American Women and Religion. Thanks also to Philip Hoose, author of Claudette Colvin: Twice Towards Justice.

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