Most people believe that Rosa Parks was the first woman to refuse to give up her seat on the bus… However, she wasnt…
There was a girl by the name of Claudette Colvin who refused to give up her seat on the bus in 1955. However, due to the fact that she was a teenager and became pregnant before marriage. Colvin was a student at Booker T. Washington High School. On March 2nd, she was returning from school when she got on a bus. Later, a white woman got on the bus and the bus driver ordered Colvin and two others to give up their seats. Colvin refused and was arrested. However, the NAACP didn’t think she was the icon to appropriately start the movement they envisioned, due to societal views on teenage pregnancy at the time. However, Colvin was still important because she one of the four plaintiffs in Browder vs. Gayle which overturned bus segregation in Montgomery and Alabama.
Know Your History!
