Claudette Colvin

Claudette Colvin was born September 5, 1939 in Alabama (Hoose, 1947). Throughout Claudette's lifetime there was a numerous amount of struggles she had to face. Some of the struggles that she has overcome would be discrimination and the death of her oldest son at a fairly young age.

Claudette Colvin is referred to as the "other" Rosa Parks, but many people believe that it should be the other way around.

During this time in history, African-Americans were looked down upon by the white people, because of their race. This is called discrimination. Colvin was one of the many African-Americans that the whites saw as not "normal" because of the color of her skin.

Claudette Colvin attended Booker T. Washington High School, where she was very studious. Claudette's family did not have enough money to afford a car, so she relied on the city's gold-and-green buses. On March 2, 1955 when Colvin was about 15 years of age, she was arrested for violation the local law. She refused to give up her seat to a group of white men that boarded the bus shortly after. She was on a bus called the Capital Heights, which was the same bus and the same year that Rosa Parks committed the same "crime" as Claudette only 9 months later. On this day, four white men got on the bus, and Claudette was sitting somewhere near the emergency exit. She was looking out the window when the white men stopped at her seat and said nothing. The bus driver ordered her to give up her seat to one of the men, and she ignored the order. She has given her seat up to white people before, but this is the day she was fed up with it. Claudette heard what the bus driver was saying, but she decided that day she was not giving up her seat to a white man just becau...

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... at a Montgomery court hearing. At this hearing, she spoke about what had occurred on March, 2 1955, and she admitted that during the time of her arrest she was pregnant. This same year, 1956, Claudette gave birth to her first son, who she named Raymond.

Raymond was very light-skinned, and many people accused Claudette of having a white child. As the years passed and Raymond got older, he became addicted to drugs. Claudette witnessed her oldest son falling into a bad addiction. She could do nothing to stop him. Raymond died of a heart attack at the age of thirty-seven. Raymond passed away in his mother's apartment. Claudette says that she is very disappointed, but she is just thankful that her grandchildren did not have to suffer what she had to struggle when she was growing up.

These are only a few of the struggles that Claudette Colvin has overcame