Question #1
What was Claudette Colvin’s childhood like?
Answer:
In the Biography Twice Toward Justice, the author Phillip Hoose details how Claudette Colvin’s childhood was not without strife. At the humble age of four, she remembers how her mother treated her after a white boy wanted to see her hands, and “gave me a backhand slap across my face…‘Don’t you know you’re not supposed to touch them,’” (Hoose 3). Throughout her childhood, she learned the hardships that would come to shape her resolve. Sadly, this is only one example to show, expressing the deep south racism through a simple quote to define what her childhood was primarily surrounded by. Not only seeing the injustice in her community from a young age, she also experienced loss:
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During a crowded afternoon bus ride, "I decided I wasn't gonna take it anymore… After the other students got up, there were three empty seats in my row, but that white woman still wouldn't sit down-not even across the aisle from me…blacks had to be behind whites… 'Why are you still sittin' there?'"(Hoose 32). Initiating the Civil Rights Movement, Claudette Colvin refused to stand for a white lady when there was an empty row next to her. Claudette's bravery sparked a fire within the black community, & they attempted to keep her name in the papers. Through the short bout of fame, “The news that a schoolgirl had been arrested for refusing to surrender her bus seat to a white passenger flashed through Montgomery’s black community and traveled far beyond,”(Hoose 39). Claudette became known as the young 15-year-old who stood up for her rights and against segregation. Although Colvin inspired the bus boycotts, she wasn’t as well known due to being younger, considered immature and impulsive, and not being as pretty or having fair skin or straighter hair, the typical standards of white people (considered …show more content…
Gayle case and how Claudette Colvin contributed greatly. The Browder v. Gayle case was the lawsuit that ultimately ended Montgomery bus segregation, and Claudette Colvin was appointed as one of the key plaintiffs. Surprisingly, “the only one of the five who had previously appeared in court on a bus case was the youngest,” (Hoose 83). That, of course, was Claudette Colvin. She was still a minor, so once the lawyer leading the case, Fred Gray–Claudette Colvin’s previous lawyer–spoke to her family, they all agreed. Colvin would testify. After the ordeal, many, including Charles Langford, were “deeply impressed by her presentation. ‘If there was a star witness in the boycott case…it had to be Claudette Colvin’” (Hoose 99-100). Answering questions plainly and truthfully without misstepping was not an easy feat, especially with Walter Knabe attempting to make one admit evidence to be twisted and prove his side of the case. Claudette Colvin answered with tact and resolve, unwilling to step down to the injustice though prying eyes judged within the courtroom. Colvin used her previous experience of being seized, lugged from a bus, and detained in an adult jail to sway the audience and win the votes of ⅔ of the
The bus driver asked for Rosa to give up her seat for the white man, but she refused. Rosa Parks was arrested and this outraged the black community. This event was controversial to the civil rights movement. On February 1st, 1960 four African American friends named David,
The Brown v Board of Education and the lynching of Emmitt Till fueled the Civil Right Movement to continue to challenge segregation, the Montgomery bus Boycott in Alabaman took years of planning by black communities, black colleges and the Women political Council (WPC) and the NAACP to start challenging segregation. The mayor of was ask by WPC to end segregating in the buses but the plead fell on deaf ears. The first Attempt was on Mach 2, 1955 with Claudette Colvin a 15 year-old student, was asked to give up her sit for a white man, she would not give up her sit. The police were called to remove her and allegedly assaulted the arresting police officer. For this reason, Colvin was not used to challenge segregation in the buses.
Claudette was an adopted child and was raised in a poor neighborhood. (NPR)
The bus driver demanded her to get up from the seat and she still refused, saying she paid her fare and it was her constitutional right. The NAACP received a large number of letters saying how brave Colvin was to refuse her seat. Secretary of the NAACP Rosa Parks reviewed the letters and incepted by the NAACP to become the spokesperson of the NAACP's bus boycott and Anti-Segregation movement. I honestly had never heard of Claudette Colvin until watching the Drunk History video. The added humor
Colvin was not the only one demonstrating courage. As described on ushistory.org, “ ‘Are you going to stand up?’ the driver demanded. Rosa Parks looked straight at him and said: ‘No.’ Flustered, and not quite sure what to do, [the bus driver] retorted, ‘Well, I'm going to have you arrested.’
Rosa Parks, an African American who suffered Jim Crow said, "Time begins the healing process of wounds cut deeply by oppression. We soothe ourselves with the salve of attempted indifference, accepting the false pattern set up by the horrible restriction of Jim Crow laws" (BrainyQuote). She is talking about people from her race at the time, oppressed deeply by these laws. A white person was forcing her to move seats to the back after an exhausting day. Jim Crow Laws were the reason that the white people were made the superior race.
In 1884, Ida brought a first-class train ticket from Memphis to Nashville. However, she wasn’t able to ride in first class because crewmembers forcibly removed her from the train when she refused to move to the car for African Americans. Ida sued the railroad and won a $500 settlement in a circuit court case, however, the decisions was overturned by the Tennessee Supreme Court. Ida was ordered to pay court costs. After this incident Ida believed it was time to speak out and encourage people to fight for what was right.
the role of “playmate” to young white children. Some former slaves had fond memories of childhood friendships with young whites. Millie Sampson recalled playing with white children and learning new words from them. But these friendships often fell apart as both parties gained an awareness of the significance of racial difference.” (West, 59)
Darrow’s tendency to defend the admitted guilty, often pro bono, permits for an interesting form of speech to come to light, as his pleas bear a sense of nobility for they
A diverse group of people from various racial backgrounds known as the Freedom Riders travelled by bus across the South in an effort to end segregated transportation policies. Their fortitude in the face of violent assaults and arrests brought the issue to national attention, igniting public outrage and escalating the demand for change. Important court cases that contested racial discrimination in interstate travel marked the conclusion of the legal struggle for desegregation. In one of these cases, Browder v. Gayle (1956), the Supreme Court ruled that segregation on public buses was unlawful. The landmark ruling not only ended segregation on buses but also established a standard for subsequent civil rights cases.
After the civil war in 1861-65, slavery ended, African-Americans were made citizens and allowed to vote. However these laws were often ignored and new laws were passed in the southern states to separate the black from the white in public. After almost 100 years of being threated as second-class citizens, the Civil Rights Movement began. Many consider the well-known story of Rosa Parks refusing to give her seat on the bus to a white man as the spark that ignited the beginning of a movement. The African-Americans started to boycott the bus system and chose the world famous and former Nobel Prize winner Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as the leader of their protest.
Young Life Claudette Colvin was born on September 5, 1939 in Montgomery, Alabama. Her adoptive parents C. P. Colvin, a lawn mower, and Mary Anne Colvin, a maid, lived in an impoverished black neighborhood. In Twice Toward Justice, Phillip Hoose’s biography of Claudette Colvin, she recounts a time at four years old when she spoke to a couple of white boys in a retail store with her mother. The boys asked to compare hands. Her mother saw her about to touch hands and she slapped her in the face and told her she could not touch them.
“Kids know Nothing about racism. They’re taught that by adults,” say’s Ruby Bridges. Ruby’s life at home, how her education impacted her family, how her education helped, the stress she was going through and how she fixed it, and her life after school. Ruby Bridges discrimination in going to school changed how people looked at kids and especially black kids at school. In fact her home life wasn’t bad.
For example, she had just gotten out of school when she got on a segregated bus, she decided to take a seat near the door, and that's when the bus driver told her to move. Claudette said she stayed because she felt the power of black leader holding her down. In Margot Adler’s article she wrote “It felt like Sojourner Truth was on one side pushing me down, and Harreit Tubman was on the other side of me pushing me down. I couldn’t get up.” Claudette stayed seated because she felt the black leader telling her to stay down and not give up her pride.
After the success with Brown v. Board of Education the segregation battle continued with public transportation. Despite segregated seating on public buses, bus drivers in Montgomery forced African Americans out of their seats for white individuals. If they did not obey the bus driver had the legal right to arrest their orders. Brown v. Board of Education opened doors to challenge the issue of segregation in many other areas as well, such as public transportation. Even though the U.S District Court ruled segregation on public buses as unconstitutional, the city of Montgomery decided to appeal the courts decision to the U.S Supreme Court and continued with public bus segregation.