Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice

Claudette Colvin was born Claudette Austin in Birmingham, Alabama in 1939 to Mary Jane Gadson and C. P. Austin. Austin left to find work soon after her birth and ultimately abandoned the family. Mary Jane was struggling financially and could not support Claudette and her sister Delphine, so the girls moved to Pine Level to live with their relatives Mary Ann and Q. P. Colvin. Although Claudette had a relationship with her mother throughout her life, she considers Mary Ann and Q. P. her parents.

Claudette’s intelligence and tendency to question the status quo were evident from a young age. She asked questions constantly and loved her one-room schoolhouse, even though they had very few resources. She always wondered why white people had authority over Black people, since reading the Bible had taught her that God created everyone equally. After moving to Montgomery, where racial segregation ruled all aspects of life, Claudette began to realize that most Black adults simply lived with racism, afraid or unwilling to face the notoriety that would come with taking a stand. Her peers had internalized many racist views, and popularity at her school was largely dictated by skin tone and having “good hair.”

Claudette made a spontaneous choice to not give up her seat on a bus, but it was backed by years of anger and oppression. She had always hoped to play a major role in the fight for civil rights, and she did, first on the bus and then with her court testimony. She only briefly became famous for her action, though, largely due to the same prejudice that she was fighting against. Claudette’s youth, dark skin, “bad” hair, and eventual status as a pregnant teenager made the elite leaders of the Montgomery activist community turn against her, as they considered her an unsuitable symbol of the bus boycotts. Claudette understood their position at the time, but continues to be disappointed that she is not widely recognized as a major player in bringing integration to Montgomery. 

After the time period covered in Claudette Colvin, Claudette passed the GED exam and began to attend Alabama State College. She left because she did not find the classes useful, and moved to New York City to live with her cousin Velma. She had a second son in 1960 and worked in a nursing home for many years. Claudette rarely revealed her activist background to anyone and refused most offers to speak at events, although she made an exception to speak at her alma mater Booker T. Washington High School in 2005. In 2021, Claudette succeeded in having her juvenile criminal record expunged. Since the 1970s, she has slowly gained more recognition for her actions in 1955, although she is still greatly overshadowed by Rosa Parks.

Mary Ann Colvin was Claudette’s great-aunt and adoptive mother, and is the person whom Claudette calls “mom” throughout the book. She is described as a protective and loving figure, who was almost always supportive of Claudette’s involvement in the activist community. She worked as a maid for a white family and worked to support the Black community however she could, such as volunteering to drive her King Hill neighbors during the bus boycotts.

Claudette’s memories of her mother are almost universally fond, although after she became pregnant, she describes Mary Ann as trying to control her life. Mary Ann persuaded Claudette to never mention the baby’s father, despite Claudette’s desire to reveal that she had been taken advantage of. After the events of the book, Mary Ann helped her in the same way that she had helped Claudette’s mother Mary Jane, taking care of her two sons when she struggled to find work due to her reputation as a “troublemaker.”

Q. P. Colvin was Claudette’s great-uncle and adoptive father. He is also one of her most ardent supporters throughout the book. He is described as a small, hardworking, and fearless man, who sits in his armchair with a shotgun, waiting for the KKK or anyone else who might threaten King Hill and their family after Claudette’s arrest and the Browder v. Gayle decision. Q. P. worked difficult, menial labor jobs throughout his life, managing to save enough money for a car and a TV so his family could fully participate in the bus boycotts and protests. When Claudette was sent to Birmingham to have her baby, a major reason she returned is because she missed her father.

Like his wife Mary Ann, Q. P. supported Claudette’s civil disobedience. He was proud of his daughter’s passion and ability to stand up to white leadership. The full support of Claudette’s parents became a primary reason for lawyer Fred Gray to pick her as one of five plaintiffs in his case to test the constitutionality of bus segregation.

Delphine Colvin was Claudette’s younger sister. The girls’ mother became pregnant with Delphine when C. P. Austin briefly returned to the family. Like Claudette, Delphine was sent to Pine Level as a baby to live with Mary Ann and Q. P., who could afford the cost of two young children. Claudette remembers Delphine as a talkative child, who would keep her awake asking questions when they shared a room after first moving to Montgomery.

A pivotal moment in Claudette’s life came in the fall of 1954, when Delphine contracted polio and died shortly after. The shocking death occurred right before Claudette started high school. Her grief made her acutely sensitive to the internalized racism of her classmates, and even more angry about Black people’s role in Southern society. During her later actions, such as when she cornrowed her hair, many of her acquaintances would claim she was not acting rationally, but instead acting out in response to her sister’s death.

Baby Tell and Mama Sweetie were Mary Ann’s best friends and two of the most influential adults in Claudette’s younger days. They are portrayed as motherly figures who let Claudette spend time at their houses and constantly ask them questions. Claudette remembers loving the antique-filled attic in Baby Tell’s house, which was the largest in Pine Hill and mysteriously acquired from a white family years earlier. Mama Sweetie read to young Claudette from the Bible and Webster’s Dictionary, and was invested in helping her develop her intelligence and curiosity.

Later in Claudette’s life, both women supported her when few would. This was especially true during her pregnancy. Mama Sweetie moved to Montgomery and helped take care of Raymond. Claudette visited Baby Tell in Pine Level when she needed a break from the city, where she was often recognized and ridiculed wherever she went.

Like Baby Tell and Mama Sweetie, Reverend H. H. Johnson was one of Claudette’s main supporters throughout her life. When Claudette lived in Pine Level, Johnson would travel from Montgomery every month for “Big Meeting Sunday,” an all-day church service that she always looked forward to. She remembers him seeming proud when she, as a young girl, questioned those who claimed Black people were cursed in the Bible.

Johnson became Claudette’s regular pastor when she moved to Montgomery. He drove with Claudette’s mother to pick her up after her arrest, and pays the bail for her release. He encouraged her decision to become a Browder v. Gayle plaintiff, and remained a close supporter after she became pregnant and most of the civil rights community turned their backs on her. Johnson was an activist in his own right, being one of the people indicted for arranging an illegal boycott during the white community’s attempts to dismantle the bus protests.

Jeremiah Reeves was a senior at Booker T. Washington High while Claudette was a freshman. They both lived in King Hill and knew each other well. Jeremiah was popular in school, a talented musician whom most people thought would have a bright future. In 1952, he was accused of sexually assaulting a white woman, then later charged with five more counts of the same crime. He was forced to confess, thinking he would be given a lighter sentence if he did. It was said that officers showed Jeremiah the electric chair and told him that he would soon be in it if he didn’t confess. Although he later retracted his confession and was given a new trial by the Supreme Court, he was convicted again in 1954 and sentenced to death. Jeremiah’s case was a major turning point for Claudette, who knew that a white man would never face punishment for sexually assaulting a Black woman, especially with no proof that the crime ever occurred. His wrongful conviction contributed to Claudette’s decision to make a stand for all Black people.

Activists worked to free Jeremiah for years, but he sat on death row until 1958, when he turned 21 and could legally be executed. He died in the same electric chair that had been used to threaten him into confessing 6 years earlier. This injustice led to large protests at the Alabama state capitol in the days after the execution.

Miss Geraldine Nesbitt and Miss Josie Lawrence were two of Claudette’s favorite teachers at Booker T. Washington High. They went to great lengths to set their students up for success, even though the school was crumbling and could afford very few books and supplies. Miss Nesbitt, the English teacher, brought books from home and taught Claudette to read texts critically; Claudette learned her true rights by analyzing historical texts like the US Constitution and the Bible, which almost every white person in the South claimed to adhere to.

Miss Lawrence was a history teacher who taught her students about African history and geography, hoping they would learn to see Black history as something other than enslavement followed by oppression. She was the first person Claudette knew who was proud of her dark skin, her African identity.

In the weeks before Claudette’s arrest, the two teachers led an in-depth study of modern segregation for Negro History Week (what would become Black History Month). As Claudette sat on the bus looking defiantly at the white woman, bus driver, and police officers, her teachers’ words were fresh in her mind, and she knew she could not continue to comply with white supremacy.

The NAACP was well established by the time Claudette was born, having been founded in 1909. By the 1950s, it was the primary organization dedicated to civil rights for Black Americans in both Montgomery and elsewhere. Although the organization aimed to increase rights for all Black people, and stepped in to defend people like Jeremiah and Claudette in their times of need, Claudette found that the NAACP, at least in Montgomery, was elitist and never made her feel fully welcome. Most members, especially those in positions of power, had grown up in middle-class or wealthy families. Most had gone to private schools and then to Alabama State College, the well-regarded local Black university.

When Claudette was first arrested, NAACP members—including E. D. Nixon, Rosa Parks, and Fred Gray—embraced her immediately and did all they could to help her. She joined the youth chapter as secretary and formed a close relationship with Parks. After her court case failed and she became pregnant, however, she felt that the organization abandoned her. Parks, a middle-class woman with light skin, straight hair, and a husband was seen as more likely to draw sympathy from a broad audience. Although Claudette agreed, she did not appreciate being left out entirely, especially after her brilliant appearance at the Browder v. Gayle hearing.

Fred Gray was Claudette’s lawyer during her initial trial and appeal, as well as during the Browder v. Gayle hearing. When Claudette met him, she saw him as a reflection of her future self, a young Black person who went North to get a degree before returning to fight for his community.

Gray’s primary goal throughout the book is to challenge the Alabama and Montgomery bus segregation laws on a constitutional basis. He believed Claudette’s case was the perfect vehicle for this, since she was directly charged with violating segregation laws and pled not-guilty. After she lost her initial trial, he hoped an appeal would bring justice and result in the bus laws becoming illegal. When the judge overturned everything but Claudette’s assault, Gray went on the offensive throughout the bus boycotts. He brought a lawsuit against the city, with Claudette and three other Black witnesses who had been harassed or arrested on city buses. Gray won, and after the city lost an appeal to the US Supreme Court, bus segregation became illegal in the state of Alabama.

Rosa Parks was a well-known figure in Montgomery well before her own arrest, as she was a familiar face at a downtown department store where she worked as a seamstress, and was the secretary of the Montgomery NAACP. When she met Claudette after the girl was arrested, she became a mentor for the young activist, as she was also leader of the NAACP youth division.

Nine months after Claudette’s arrest, Parks staged her own act of civil disobedience and, like Claudette, was arrested for refusing to give up a seat on a bus. Unlike Claudette, however, she became the catalyst for a city-wide boycott, as she was deemed to be a more likable figure as the movement’s symbolic leader. Claudette understood why Parks was a better candidate for the role at the time, but resented that Parks abandoned her when she was struggling with single motherhood. In later years, Claudette would express disappointment that Parks never mentioned her or Mary Louise Smith when talking about the start of the bus boycotts.

When Claudette was arrested, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a young pastor just beginning to get involved with politics. E. D. Nixon’s initial meeting between Black leaders and city officials, held in response to Claudette’s arrest, marked his first major foray into civil rights leadership. Dr. King quickly gained fame among the Black community in Montgomery as bus-related resentment grew, and when the boycotts started, he became known nationwide as the charismatic leader of the protest movement.

In Browder v. Gayle, the city’s primary strategy was to trick the plaintiffs into saying that Dr. King, who had grown up in Atlanta, had lured Black people to a cause that they didn’t actually care about—which was easily disproven. Later on, Dr. King acknowledged Claudette’s courage at a reception, a particularly meaningful moment for the latter.