How Did Claudette Colvin Affect The Civil Rights Movement

Before Rosa Parks, there was Claudette Colvin. Claudette Colvin once said, “It is my constitutional right.” Referring to the constitutional rights she has as an individual to life, liberty, and happiness. She who was the starting root of the Civil Rights Movement. Her actions caused for blacks to begin to gain courage to earn their rights. Civil Disobedience is when a person or group protest a law that they find morally wrong. The person is usually peaceful and will accept whatever consequence arise due to breaking the law. (Suber). People use civil disobedience to draw attention to the laws they find morally wrong and to get laws changed (Starr). To understand Claudette Colvins’ role in civil disobedience, one must first have knowledge of

She attended Washington High School where she was an AB honor roll student throughout her high school years. Her childhood was not the best with segregation happening in which in an interview she mentioned how rough things were during the Jim Crow laws (Lawson). Claudette Colvin’s act of civil disobedience caused impact to the point where the Civil Rights Movement began. She was only a junior in high school and was on her way home when she was suddenly arrested for not wanting to give up her seat for a white woman on a public bus. She mentions that she would not give up her seat because simply, history had her glued to her seat, for that reason she refused to obey the segregation law (Lawson). The laws she lived throughout her childhood and a bit of her teenage years were tremendous in which society itself was segregated in Montgomery, Alabama. Schools, buses, stores, and even marriage with a different race was considered a crime and morally wrong (Lawson). Claudette’s action had tremendously drew attention from the black leader in the community. After her arrest in March, 1955, where she was charged with several charges in which one of them were violating and not obeying the segregation laws which the city had (Hoose). Ms. Colvin’s action caused for black leaders to sue the city of Montgomery, Alabama through a federal court. Eventually black leaders encouraged for other blacks to begin a

Her refusal was recognized by many black activists during segregation, those who were Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and many others. Even though Claudette was the beginner whom refused to obey segregation laws, she was not the face whom the public wanted to be the face of the Civil Rights Movement because of her resulting to be pregnant a few months afterwards (Lawson). Nine months after Claudette’s civil disobedience, Rosa Parks as well disobeyed segregation laws coincidentally, refused to give up a seat on a public bus. This resulted for the Civil Rights Movement to begin as well as the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Rosa Parks was not only the face of the movement but a great inspiration for Claudette Colvin who was not exactly the appearance of the movement but had proudly set the very first victory for the U.S. civil rights movement which was prospected as major at this point in time