Claudette Colvin – A “Teenage Rosa Parks”

Radio Diaries : #30: Claudette Colvin – A “Teenage Rosa Parks” Image
Radio Diaries : #30: Claudette Colvin – A “Teenage Rosa Parks” Image

Claudette Colvin – A “Teenage Rosa Parks”

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What makes a hero? Why do we remember some stories and not others?

Consider Claudette Colvin. She was a 15-year-old girl in the segregated city of Montgomery, Alabama. On March 2, 1955, she refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger.

Nine months later, Rosa Parks did the exact same thing. Parks, of course, became a powerful symbol of the civil rights movement. But Claudette Colvin has largely been left out of the history books.