In 1955, nine months before Rosa Parks’ much more famous arrest for the same thing, fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin was placed in handcuffs, arrested, and booked for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus to a White person. Colvin belonged to Parks’ NAACP youth group and fully intended that her action should be the basis for a legal battle against segregation, but this was not to be. Colvin wasn’t middle class, got pregnant out of wedlock, and had a tendency sometimes to get loud, so she wasn’t deemed to be the best choice for a long, rigorous -- and highly crucial -- legal process. Maybe not, but she gets a nod on this blog, nonetheless, for being in-your-face at a very young age and with much at stake.
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