The untold story of Claudette Colvin

Claudette Colvin born in Claudette Austin, September 5, 1939 is a pioneer of the 1950s civil rights movement and retired nurse aide.

At age 15, on March 2, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, Claudette Colvin refused to give up her seat to a white woman. Colvin was motivated by what she had been learning in school about African American history and the U.S. Constitution

It may have been 65 years ago, but Colvin still remembers it all "History had me glued to the seat,” she says.

As two white police officers dragged her from the bus, her body went limp. She shouted repeatedly: “It’s my constitutional right.” She was handcuffed, placed in jail, and charged with violating segregation laws, disturbing the peace, and assaulting a police officer. She pleaded not guilty but was convicted.

Colvin’s unplanned act of bravery was almost written out of civil-rights history.

The Montgomery bus boycott began nine months after her arrest, spurred by the arrest of Rosa Parks in an almost identical incident, so the story went.

That was until revisionist historians, a handful of journalists and Phillip Hoose’s National Book award-winning biography of Colvin corrected the record in the early 00s. In truth, the actions that Colvin took on that day in March planted the seed for the boycott and, critically, the legal foundations to challenge transportation segregation laws in federal court. She was a hero of the movement, clumsily labeled “the original Rosa Parks”.

Colvin has often said she is not angry that she did not get more recognition; rather, she is disappointed. She said she felt as if she was "getting her Christmas in January rather than the 25th.

"I don’t think there’s room for many more icons. I think that history only has room enough for certain—you know, how many icons can you choose? So, you know, I think you compare history, like—most historians say Columbus discovered America, and it was already populated. But they don’t say that Columbus discovered America; they should say, for the European people, that is, you know, their discovery of the new world." So that's why I decided to showcase this untold story, Claudette Colvin truly deserves her recognition as a pioneer for the Civil Rights Movements. Both her and Rosa Parks were two brave black women who didn't conform and accept their horrible situation. Without them and many other untold stories, we wouldn't be where we are today in terms of civil rights movements and anti-racism in America as a whole.

It's really important to say their names, give them visibility and educate everyone about their stories so that history does not forget the personalities that actually changed the world for the better.