Radio Diaries: Claudette Colvin – A Teenage “Rosa Parks”“What makes a he
Radio Diaries: Claudette Colvin – A Teenage “Rosa Parks”“What makes a hero? Why do we remember some stories and not others?Consider Claudette Colvin. She was a 15-year-old girl in the segregated city of Montgomery, Alabama. On March 2, 1955, she refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger.Nine months later, Rosa Parks did the exact same thing. Parks, of course, became a powerful symbol of the civil rights movement. But Claudette Colvin has largely been left out of the history books.On the 60th anniversary of Claudette’s action on the bus, we bring you her story on NPR’s All Things Considered. It will be available on the Radio Diaries Podcast on Thursday.In 1956, about a year after Colvin refused to give up her seat, her attorney Fred Gray filed the landmark federal lawsuit Browder v. Gayle. This case ended segregation on public transportation in Alabama. Claudette Colvin was a star witness.”Listen to the Radio Diary herePhoto 1: Claudette Colvin’s school photo, likely taken in 1953, when she was 13.Photo 2: A segregated bus in Birmingham, AL. Courtesy of Birmingham Public Library, Dept. of Archives and Manuscripts. -- source link
#claudette colvin#black history#black women#woc#racism#racial segregation#rosa parks#herstory#women's history