As the more enlightened of you might know the 8th of March is International Women’s days. In honour of this, I will be writing a small article about 7 women whom I believe should be celebrated more for their achievements, and then posting one article each day in the week proceeding the 8th of March. Now some of you might know a lot more about the subjects then I do, which is all well and good, remember these are women I believe should be more celebrated because I haven’t heard about them a lot. As the articles will be brief I ask you to look up more on these extraordinary women yourself.
Name:
Born:
From:
Should be known more for: Civil Rights Activism
Born in Montgomery, Alabama, Claudette was an orphan who
was adopted and raised by a couple called the Colvins. At the age of 15 she was
an A-grade student, living with Segregation. In 1955 while riding home from
school on a bus, Colvin was ordered to move to the back of the bus to make room
for white passengers who had just boarded the bus. Colvin refused to do so, the
police was called and the young Colvin was handcuffed, arrested and removed
from the bus. She kept insisting that it was her constitutional right to sit
wherever she wanted. She was charged with disturbing the peace and violating
the segregation law. Although only given probation, (even though she had pleaded
not guilty in front of the court), Colvin was branded a troublemaker. She had
to leave college and couldn’t find work.
The NAACP thought about using Colvin’s case to challenge
the segregation laws, however they ultimately didn’t go through with this as
they found Colvin to be unsuitable. She was young, pregnant at the time and not
married. This was not someone they thought would be a good face to front their
cause. Luckily for them they found someone more suitable a little less than 9
months later in Rosa Parks. Now how much influence the Colvin case had overall
on Rosa Parks, we don’t know. They were both living in Montgomery at the time
and Parks was a member of the NAACP, so she would most definitely have been
aware of Colvin. No matter how much influence the Colvin case had on Parks, it
does not take anything from the courage that she showed when making her
protest.
Even though going through a hard time in 1956, not being
able to find work and having a new born baby to look after, Colvin became one
of four plaintiffs in the case of Browder v. Gayle, (the others being Aurelia
S. Browder, Susie McDonald, Mary Louise Smith), The case contested that the
Alabama bus segregation laws were unconstitutional. The courts found against
the law. The State of Alabama appealed to the Supreme Court, who found the
ruling sound and ordered the State of Alabama to discontinue bus segregation.
This was huge victory for the civil rights movement at the time. Colvin then
moved to New York, finding work as a nurse’s aide.
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