John Lewis’ life of causing ‘good trouble’ left scars and a legacy
Susan Page discusses John Lewis’s legacy as an elder statesman in the ongoing civil rights movement.
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Less than a year after Rosa Parks’ famous effort, Claudette Colvin, who as a teenager refused to move to the back of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, died. She was 86 years old.
“The Claudette Colvin Foundation and family are deeply saddened to announce the passing of beloved mother, grandmother, and civil rights pioneer Claudette Colvin,” the foundation and family said in a statement posted on Facebook. “She left behind a legacy of courage that helped change the course of American history.”
Colvin died of natural causes in southeast Texas, near Houston, said Ashley Roseboro of Roseboro Holdings, a Washington, D.C.-based management and community partnership firm that represents the Colvin family.
Montgomery Mayor Stephen L. Reed said Colvin’s life “reminds us that movements are built not just by the best-known names, but by those who showed courage early, quietly, and at great personal sacrifice.”
15 year old boy stands up
It was March 2, 1955, when Colvin, then a 15-year-old bespectacled honor student at Montgomery’s Booker T. Washington High School, boarded a City Line bus in Montgomery. I remembered that she was wearing a light blue sweater and a navy blue skirt.
Her mother later said that on any other day, events might have unfolded differently, but in the end, fate chose the wrong day to test her daughter. Colvin explained that she had just spent February studying black history in school and learning about injustice throughout the South, and that the thought occurred to her while riding the bus that day.
Montgomery’s segregation laws required whites to sit in the front and blacks in the back, creating a “no man’s land” seating area between the two groups. Colvin was sitting in “no man’s land” when a group of white passengers boarded the plane.
The driver asked the girl to move backwards, but the girl did not comply.
“I felt like Harriet Tubman was pushing down on one of my shoulders and Sojourner Truth was pushing down on the other,” she said. “So history glued me to my seat. That’s why I couldn’t move.”
Several police officers eventually boarded the bus, but Colvin remained unmoved.
Colvin was dragged off the bus, handcuffed and charged with assault and battery, disorderly conduct and violating urban segregation laws. Although most of the charges were dismissed, a juvenile court judge found Colvin guilty of assault, and she was made a ward of the state and placed on indefinite probation.
The next few months were harsh and isolated for the teenager, shunned by friends and excluded from social events.
“It was difficult because people saw me differently,” Colvin said. “People who didn’t know me said I was crazy. Some parents didn’t want their children to have anything to do with me.”
Fred Gray, a young civil rights lawyer who would eventually take Montgomery’s fight against segregation laws to the U.S. Supreme Court, praised the teenager’s courage in expanding the fight for civil rights.
“(You) had a 15-year-old girl who didn’t know what was going to happen and was willing to do what she did and accept any consequences,” he said. “Claudette was much braver than many of us involved.”
Mr. Gray and his colleagues had hoped to challenge Mr. Montgomery’s segregation laws in court, but with Mr. Colvin’s racial discrimination charges dismissed, they chose to wait until a stronger case emerged.
“I knew I would get another chance and I was ready,” he wrote.
Nine months later, Parks was arrested.
Legacy and long-awaited relief
In 1956, Colvin was one of four black women plaintiffs in the Browder v. Gale case, which challenged Montgomery’s unconstitutional segregation of seats on buses, transforming all types of public transportation across the country.
Colvin left the South after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and moved to New York, where she spent many years as a nurse’s assistant. The law has changed. So has society, and in 2019, her former home, Montgomery Street, was renamed Claudette Colvin Drive.
However, the “indefinite probation” she had been sentenced to hung over her head like a cloud.
Finally, in November 2021, after efforts by volunteer attorneys and researchers, a Montgomery Juvenile Court judge vacated Colvin’s 1955 arrest, citing “a statutory right and equity action” that “subsequently was recognized as a courageous act on her behalf and on behalf of the community of those affected.”
It was a long wait.
“At 82 years old, I’m no longer a juvenile delinquent,” she joked.
Two years ago, when her home city recognized her by renaming a street, Colvin said she wasn’t out looking for trouble. No one asked her to take action, and she didn’t know if support would continue.
“I just went out on my own and knew I had to take care of myself,” she said. “I’m a hard-hitting woman. You have to have a lot of courage, a lot of faith, and believe in yourself.”
But to his family, Colvin is more than just a historical figure.
“She was the heart of our family, wise, resilient and faith-based,” they said in a statement. “We will remember her laughter, her sharp wit, and her unwavering belief in justice and human dignity.”
Contributors: Shannon Heupel, Melissa Brown, Brian Lyman, USA TODAY Network
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