Imagine being 15 and doing the very thing Rosa Parks had done at the age of 42.That is exactly what Claudette had done, though 9 months prior to Rosa Parks. As a young girl growing up in Montgomery during a time when Jim Crow laws were still being practiced, Colvin faced many unfair situations.
One of these situations, as Colvin had spoken on herself, was said to be an instance at a store where a young white boy made fun of her physical differences. When the boy teasingly asked her to show him her hands, Colvin complied and held her hands out to touch his, possibly an act to show that they are actually pretty similar to each other. However, because of this small action, Colvin received what she called "a backhand smack on the forehead" from her mother.
"The Other Rosa Parks"On March 2nd, 1955, Claudette was walking to the city bus with three of her classmates, where they all sat towards the back of the bus. Keep in mind that the front of the bus was reserved for white people at the time, whereas colored people were allowed to sit in the back. As the bus filled up, a white woman who got on could not find a seat. At this moment, the bus driver was allowed by the Jim Crow laws to ask any black person to give up their seat, and Colvin and her friends happened to be the people the driver chose. Whereas her classmates complied quickly, standing up and allowing the woman to sit, Colvin ignored the driver, causing both the driver and the woman to get irritated. Although there were empty seats besides Colvin, the woman refused to sit there because Jim Crow laws had stated that a black person was not permitted to sit next to, or opposite of, a white person on the bus.
After asking Colvin multiple times to get off of her seat, the local traffic officer in that area got onto the bus and attempted to persuade her off of the seat, as well. However, due to multiple failed attempts, and because the officer had no power, the bus driver ultimately drove to an area where there were two police officers on patrol. Once the police officers got onto the bus, the first thing they did was ask Colvin why she didn’t get up, to which her reply was the very powerful: “...it is my constitutional right. I paid my bus fare and I’m sitting where I’m supposed to be. This is my constitutional right.” Despite the truth in her words, she was “manhandled” off of the bus by the police, and handcuffed through the window of the police car, before being taken to adult jail instead of a juvenile detention center. Her classmates called her parents and her minister, who bailed her out. She was tried as an adult and out of three charges (breaking the segregation law, resisting arrest, and assaulting a police officer) only two were dropped by a judge. Ultimately, Colvin was told that she was very lucky to have gotten out of jail, and that was the night she was told she would be the start of a revolution.