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- Family: she has a white son Raymond Colvin, a black mother Mary Anne Colvin a sister Velma Colvin, a black father Q.P. Colvin, and her second son Randy Colvin/ Father of her child Raymond Colvin  Elliot Klein proposed but had it turned down and they were better off as friends.
- Childhood she grew up in one of the poorest neighborhoods, she studied hard in school, she one day wished to be president.

-Education studied hard in school earned her grades went to Booker T Washington High School

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- she is an activist/ pioneer in the civil rights movement and a retired nurse aside she was the first way before rosa parks did it.  Claudette refused to give up her seat to a white woman on a crowded segregated bus when she was 15 and was arrested because of it. significance: she made a change and she wanted everyone to be equal no matter what there skin color is.

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I chose this because it shows what happened and how she dealt with racism and segregation on a bus and how she stood up for her rights when she was only 15.

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Claudette Colvin: The Original Rosa Parks

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- "All I remember is that I was not going to walk off the bus voluntarily," https://www.npr.org/2009/03/15/101719889/before-rosa-parks-there-was-claudette-colvin why I chose it because it really experienced what happened to Claudette when she was in that situation just like rosa but before that

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Few people know the story of Claudette Colvin: When she was 15, she refused to move to the back of the bus and give up her seat to a white person - nine months before Rosa Parks did the very same thing.

Most people know about Parks and the Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott that began in 1955, but few know that there were a number of women who refused to give up their seats on the same bus system. Most of the women were quietly fined, and no one heard much more.

Colvin was the first to really challenge the law.

Now a 69-year-old retiree, Colvin lives in the Bronx. She remembers taking the bus home from high school on March 2, 1955, as clear as if it were yesterday.

The bus driver ordered her to get up and she refused, saying she'd paid her fare and it was her constitutional right. Two police officers put her in handcuffs and arrested her. Her school books went flying off her lap.

"All I remember is that I was not going to walk off the bus voluntarily," Colvin says.

It was Negro history month, and at her segregated school they had been studying black leaders like Harriet Tubman, the runaway slave who led more than 70 slaves to freedom through the network of safe houses known as the Underground Railroad. They were also studying about Sojourner Truth, a former slave who became an abolitionist and women's rights activist.

The class had also been talking about the injustices they were experiencing daily under the Jim Crow segregation laws, like not being able to eat at a lunch counter.

"We couldn't try on clothes," Colvin says. "You had to take a brown paper bag and draw a diagram of your foot ... and take it to the store. Can you imagine all of that in my mind? My head was just too full of black history, you know, the oppression that we went through. It felt like Sojourner Truth was on one side pushing me down, and Harriet Tubman was on the other side of me pushing me down. I couldn't get up."

Colvin also remembers the moment the jail door closed. It was just like a Western movie, she says.

"And then I got scared, and panic come over me, and I started crying. Then I started saying the Lord's Prayer," she says.
'Twice Toward Justice'
Now her story is the subject of a new book, Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice.

Author Phil Hoose says that despite a few articles about her in the Birmingham press and in USA Today, and brief mentions in some books about the civil rights movement, most people don't know about the role Colvin played in the bus boycotts.

Hoose couldn't get over that there was this teenager, nine months before Rosa Parks, "in the same city, in the same bus system, with very tough consequences, hauled off the bus, handcuffed, jailed and nobody really knew about it."

He also believes Colvin is important because she challenged the law in court, one of four women plaintiffs in Browder v. Gayle, the court case that successfully overturned bus segregation laws in Montgomery and Alabama.

There are many reasons why Claudette Colvin has been pretty much forgotten. She hardly ever told her story when she moved to New York City. In her new community, hardly anyone was talking about integration; instead, most people were talking about black enterprises, black power and Malcolm X.

When asked why she is little known and why everyone thinks only of Rosa Parks, Colvin says the NAACP and all the other black organizations felt Parks would be a good icon because "she was an adult. They didn't think teenagers would be reliable."

She also says Parks had the right hair and the right look.

"Her skin texture was the kind that people associate with the middle class," says Colvin. "She fit that profile."

David Garrow, a historian and the author of Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, says people may think that Parks' action was spontaneous, but black civic leaders had been thinking about what to do about the Montgomery buses for years.

After Colvin's arrest, she found herself shunned by parts of her community. She experienced various difficulties and became pregnant. Civil rights leaders felt she was an inappropriate symbol for a test case.

Parks was the secretary of the NAACP. She was well-known and respected and, says Garrow, Parks had a "natural gravitas" and was an "inherently impressive person."

At the same time, Garrow believes attention to Colvin is a healthy corrective, because "the real reality of the movement was often young people and often more than 50 percent women." The images you most often see are men in suits.

Hoose says he believes Colvin understands the pragmatism that pushed Parks to the fore, but "on the other hand, she did it."

Hoose says the stories of Parks and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. are wonderful, but those are the stories of people in their 30s and 40s. Colvin was 15. Hoose feels his book will bring a fresh teen's perspective to the struggle to end segregation.

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Before Rosa Parks, There Was Claudette Colvin

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Most people know about Rosa Parks and the 1955 Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott. Nine months earlier, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin refused to give up her seat on the same bus system.

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Montgomery Bus Boycott Movement!  Martin Luther King, Jr  ( President) Lead the Movement

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Montgomery Bus Boycott Movement!  Martin Luther King, Jr  ( President) Lead the Movement

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- Civil rights protest which African- American people refused to ride the bus because of its racist laws and to protest its segregation seating the reason why local laws dedicated that white people should sit in the front and black people should sit in the back is that after an incident that occurred when rosa parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger.

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References

Before Rosa Parks, there was Claudette Colvin. (2009, March 15). NPR.org. https://www.npr.org/2009/03/15/101719889/before-rosa-parks-there-was-claudette-colvin

https://action.scholastic.com/issues/2017-18/020118/this-is-what-courage-looks-like.html

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Readers Theater Play

Check the character you're going to read. *Starred characters have larger speaking parts.

*Narrators 1, 2, 3 (N1, N2, N3)

* Claudette Colvin, a 15-year-old girl

Mrs. Nesbitt, Claudette's teacher

Joan, Dennis, & Eddie, Claudette's classmates

Bus Driver

Officers 1 & 2

Mr. Colvin, Claudette's dad

Mrs. Colvin, Claudette's mom

Fred Gray, Claudette's lawyer

Walter Knabe, the city's lawyer

Newscaster

unjust: very unfair, not right

segregation: the practice of keeping people separated based on race

constitutional: following the laws of the U.S. Constitution

assault: an attack

boycott: protest by refusing to use or buy something

N1: Have you heard of Rosa Parks? In December 1955, she did something very brave.

N2: Back then, in Montgomery, Alabama, there were many unfair laws.

N3: One law said that black people had to give up their bus seats to white people.

N1: But one day, Rosa Parks stayed in her seat. She thought the law was unjust.

N2: Rosa was arrested. She became famous for fighting for equality.

N3: But Rosa Parks was not the first to do what she did.

N1: Let's visit Montgomery nine months earlier ...

N2: It is March 1955.

N3: In the South, segregation is still in effect.

N1: Black people can't live in white neighborhoods.

N2: They can't eat at white restaurants or attend white schools.

N3: Booker T. Washington High School is a school for black students.

N1: Mrs. Nesbitt stands in front of a crowded class.

MRS. NESBITT: Who can name a black hero?

N2: A tall girl with glasses raises her hand.

MRS. NESBITT: Claudette?

CLAUDETTE COLVIN: Harriet Tubman. She was a slave who escaped. Then she went back to the South and helped free more than 70 other slaves.

MRS. NESBITT: Yes, she was very brave. All through our history, black people have fought for their rights.

JOAN: Who is going to be the Harriet Tubman of today?

DENNIS: Every day we are treated badly.

EDDIE: At the movies, we have to sit in the balcony.

JOAN: When I shop, I'm not allowed to try anything on. Only white girls can do that.

CLAUDETTE: Have you noticed how run-down our school is?

DENNIS: White kids go to nice schools with brand-new books.

MRS. NESBITT: Now back to Joan's question: Who will be the Harriet Tubman of today?

N3: After school, Claudette and her friends get on a city bus. They walk to the middle, behind the "whites only" section, and sit down.

N1: The bus starts to fill up.

EDDIE: We have to move. That white lady wants our seats.

N2: Claudette's friends get up. But Claudette does not move.

BUS DRIVER: Why are you still sittin' there?

N3: Claudette sits quietly.

BUS DRIVER: Give up the seat! Don't make me get the police.

CLAUDETTE: I paid my fare.

N1: At the next stop, two police officers get on.

OFFICER 1 (to Claudette): You gonna get up?

CLAUDETTE: No, sir.

OFFICER 2: It's not a choice.

CLAUDETTE: I paid my fare.

OFFICER!: Get up!

N2: Tears fill Claudette's eyes.

CLAUDETTE: It is my constitutional right to sit here.

N3: The officers yank Claudette from her seat. Her schoolbooks fall to the floor.

N1: One officer kicks her.

N2: Claudette cries as the officers drag her off the bus.

N3: Claudette spends several hours alone in a jail cell.

N1: Finally, she can go home.

MR. COLVIN: What were you thinking, Claudette?

CLAUDETTE: I was thinking of Harriet Tubman. I felt like her hand was on my shoulder, keeping me in my seat.

MR. COLV|N: Those policemen could have really hurt you.

N2: Claudette's mother puts her arm around Claudette.

MRS. COLVIN: I think you were very brave.

N3: Back at school, friends gather around Claudette.

DENNIS: I can't believe you got arrested!

EDDIE: I would never have the guts to do what you did!

N1: For a while, Claudette is treated like a celebrity.

N2: But then things take a bad turn. By not giving up her seat, Claudette broke the law.

N3: One of the policemen says she scratched him.

N1: She is charged with assault and found guilty.

N2: Now her friends avoid her.

N3: In the cafeteria, they take their trays and move away.

CLAUDETTE: Where are you going?

JOAN: You made things worse for all of us.

N1: Claudette eats alone.

N2: In December, 42-year-old Rosa Parks is arrested for not giving up her seat on a bus.

N3: It is the same thing Claudette did nine months earlier. But this time, people are ready to join the fight.

N1: Tens of thousands of black people in Montgomery boycott public buses.

N2: They refuse to ride until the unfair laws are changed.

N3: Meanwhile, the Colvins speak to a lawyer.

FRED GRAY: We want to fight the bus laws in court.

MR. COLVIN: Do you really think you can win?

GRAY: I think we have a real chance. Claudette, will you be a witness? You can explain how you were treated.

N1: Claudette looks at her parents.

GRAY: It won't be easy. You'd be in the papers and on TV. Your family might get threats.

N2: Claudette is quiet, then lifts her chin.

CLAUDETTE: I will do it.

N3: The courtroom is packed

N1: Three judges sit up front.

N2: Claudette is on the witness stand.

GRAY: Miss Colvin, what happened when you stayed in your seat on the bus?

CLAUDETTE: One policeman asked if I was going to get up. I said, "No, sir."

GRAY: Then what?

CLAUDETTE: The other policeman kicked me. They dragged me out. I was crying.

N3: The judges listen closely.

CLAUDETTE: They handcuffed me. They took me to an adult jail, even though I was 15.

GRAY: Thank you, Miss Colvin. That is all.

N1: The lawyer for the city stands up.

WALTER KNABE: Who told all the black folks of Montgomery to boycott the buses?

CLAUDETTE: No one.

KNABE: But there wasn't a problem with the buses before the boycott, was there?

CLAUDETTE: Yes, there was.

N2: Claudette sits up straight.

KNABE: I'm going to ask you one more time: Why did you stop riding the buses?

CLAUDETTE: Because we were treated wrong --- like we weren't even human beings.

N3: A month later, Claudette is watching the news.

NEWSCASTER: The decision in the bus case has come in.

CLAUDETTE: Mom! They're talking about our case!

NEWSCASTER: The judges have ruled that the bus laws are unconstitutional.

CLAUDETTE: We won!

MRS. COLVIN: I am so proud of you, Claudette.

CLAUDETTE: I will never stop fighting for our rights.

N1: Like Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks, Claudette had become a true hero.

Action Activity

"This Is What Courage Looks Like." Now it's time to try this activity.

An inference is something that is not stated but can be figured out from clues in the text.

WHAT TO DO: Imagine that you are Claudette Colvin, all grown up. A student wants to write a school report about you. Make inferences to answer each question below with at least one complete sentence.

1. Doan wondered who would be "the Harriet Tubman of today." What did she mean?

2. When the officers asked you to give up your seat, you said, "I paid my fare." What point were you trying to make?

3. Why did joan and your other friends think you made things worse?

4. In court, what was Walter Knabe trying to get you to say about the bus boycott?

5. How do you think someone would describe you after seeing you in court?

A CITY DIVIDED

Montgomery, Alabama, was a segregated city. African-Americans couldn't go to the same restaurants as white people. Black people even had their own water fountains.

TAKING A STAND Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white person. She became a symbol of the fight for equality. But few people know that Claudette Colvin had taken the same stand months earlier.

THE BUS BOYCOTT After Rosa Parks was arrested, more people were ready to join the fight for equal rights. African-Americans in Montgomery refused to ride the bus for a year.

A TRUE HERO Today, Claudette Colvin lives in New York City. Few people know about her brave act as a teenager.

~~~~~~~~

By MACK LEWIS

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THIS IS WHAT COURAGE LOOKS LIKE: How 15-year-old Claudette Colvin took a st...: EBSCOhost

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Readers Theater Play Check the character you're going to read. *Starred characters have larger speaking parts. *Narrators 1, 2, 3 (N1, N2, N3) * Claudette Colvin, a 15-year-old girl Mrs. Nesbitt, Claudette's teacher Joan, Dennis, & Eddie, Claudette's classmates Bus Driver Officers 1 & 2 Mr. Colvin, Claudette's dad Mrs.