Unsung civil rights crusader’s story told

Published 5:43 pm Monday, December 27, 2010

On March 2, 1955, a 15-year-old black teenager was dragged from a Montgomery, Ala., city bus and jailed because she refused to give up her seat to a white woman.

Some blacks in Montgomery quietly cheered Claudette Colvin’s efforts to take a stand against segregation; others shunned her, believing that she was just a “feisty” teenager making things harder for everyone.

Indeed, Colvin had stirred things up: Nine months later, a seamstress named Rosa Parks also refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus, igniting a massive bus boycott. Parks became a national symbol of the civil-rights movement, while Colvin’s role was largely forgotten.

More than 50 years later, Colvin’s battle against segregation is the subject of a riveting new book, “Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice” $19.95 for ages 12 up), written by Phillip Hoose.

In much of the book, Hoose, who spent hours interviewing Colvin, wisely allows her to tell her own story, which gives the text an immediacy that readers will find irresistible.

Hoose, an award-winning nonfiction writer for children and teens, learned about Colvin’s fight against Montgomery’s segregated buses in 2000. He knew that her story was both important and inspiring, and he wanted to write about it. But Colvin, scarred by her earlier experiences, resisted Hoose’s overtures until 2006, when she finally agreed to talk to him.

As the book’s subtitle indicates, Colvin actually challenged Montgomery’s segregated bus law twice, first by refusing to give up her seat, and then again, a year later, when she became one of four plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the bus law.

By that time, Colvin was dealing with her own personal battles. For refusing to give up her seat in 1955, Colvin was convicted of violating the segregation law and placed on probation. Worse than that, many of Colvin’s fellow students turned against her.

Feeling alone and unhappy, Colvin was the perfect target for a smooth-talking older man looking for a quick fling. Unschooled in sexual matters, Colvin ended up pregnant and was thrown out of school. She was reviled by many in the black community for having a child out of wedlock.

Despite her youth, however, Colvin had a core of steel and a fiery passion for justice. So, when black lawyers asked her to be part of the lawsuit, she didn’t hesitate.