Claudette Colvin, the Original Rosa Parks

A newspaper article about Colvin's arrest

Yesterday, December 1, was the 60th anniversary of that iconic day when civil rights activist Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in favor of a white person. With this act, Ms. Parks was at the forefront of a rebellion, the Montgomery Bus Boycotts, which would change the face of the civil rights movement forever. Politicians and everyday people alike celebrated by changing their Twitter pictures to honor her, hosting youth summits, and dedicating statues to her.

Rosa Parks was an important figure in the movement, and her efforts both before and after the boycott were integral in helping fight for equality.

Colvin, around the time she was arrested

The problem is that she was not the first woman to refuse to give up her seat on a bus for a white person in Montgomery.  

Claudette Colvin was the first woman arrested for saying "hell no" to giving up her seat, preceding Rosa Parks by 9 months. But why don't we learn about her in school?

Unfortunately, it's because she didn't look the part.

For one thing, Colvin was only 15 when she refused to give up her seat. By comparison, Parks was in her 40s. 

Colvin was also poorer than Parks, and dressed as such. Her skin was also much darker than Parks's, which may have contributed to the civil rights movement's idea that she was an imperfect face for their cause. 

And only a year after her arrest, she found herself the unwed mother of a baby whose father was much older, and married.

Her age meant she was "too mouthy, too brash, and too emotional" to head the planned boycott; the organizers passed her up in favor of a calmer, more experienced Parks to act as a publicized catalyst for the movement.

Colvin in the present

All of this makes me consider an ugly side of activism: in an effort to be taken seriously by oppressors, they often turn against one another, projecting their oppressor's ideas and perceptions onto themselves as a way of self-censoring. But Claudette Colvin deserves to be honored, if not then, now. As the first girl to be arrested, setting off the chain of arrests which culminated in Rosa Parks, she should not be a footnote in history.

And perhaps the way she was treated and denied her true title as the one who began the Montgomery boycotts makes her even more deserving of our honor.