Published On: 10.27.21 | 

By: Mark Kelly

Claudette Colvin, supporters hope to clear her record for civil rights era arrest

Phillip Ensler, part of the legal team that filed a petition with Montgomery County Family Court on Claudette Colvin's behalf, talks about the effort as Colvin, in wheelchair at left, listens. The petition seeks expungement of her criminal record related to the then 15-year-old's refusal to give up her seat on a bus to a white woman. (Mark Kelly / Alabama NewsCenter)

On Oct. 26, a bright and cloudless fall afternoon nearly 67 years after Claudette Colvin’s arrest for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white woman, a crowd of about 50 people gathered outside the building that houses the juvenile division of Montgomery County Family Court. They were there to support the submission to the court of a petition for expungement of her criminal record. Virtually all were masked as they mingled, patiently awaiting her arrival.

Colvin’s unfinished journey began on March 2, 1955, when as a 15-year-old student she boarded a Montgomery city bus, as she did each day on finishing class at Booker T. Washington High School.

Claudette Colvin recalls her arrest for not giving up her seat on a Montgomery bus from Alabama NewsCenter on Vimeo.

Usually, Colvin and other Black students rode a bus that ran a special route, initiated after incidents of harassment when they walked through white neighborhoods to reach the regular bus line. The route was designed to transport Black children to and from school as directly as possible.

On that day, school dismissed early for a faculty meeting, and Colvin and three classmates decided not to board “the Special.” Instead, they took another bus to browse at the department stores downtown.

Heading home later, they boarded a bus on Dexter Avenue, Montgomery’s main street. As on all city buses, seating was segregated, with Black riders prohibited from sitting in the “white” section.

Claudette Colvin, right, speaks with attorney Fred Gray, who represented her more than 65 years ago when, as a 15-year-old, she was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white woman on a Montgomery bus. (Mark Kelly / Alabama NewsCenter)

Proceeding down Dexter, both sections of the bus filled. A young white woman got on and, in accordance with city ordinance, the bus driver told Colvin and her friends to vacate the row of seats they occupied, so the white passenger could be seated with all Black passengers seated or standing behind them.

Reluctantly, her classmates complied with the driver’s order. Colvin refused to give up her seat.

“The white lady had a whole seat to herself,” Colvin recalled. “But she wasn’t going to sit in that seat because I was sitting across the aisle from her.”

At the next stop, the driver summoned a traffic patrolman. The patrolman came to the back door of the bus. He asked Colvin why she was still seated.

“I told him I paid my fare and it’s my constitutional right,” Colvin said. While her action was a spontaneous expression of her convictions, the teenager was prepared for it. Colvin was familiar with the burgeoning civil rights movement, and had been further inspired just the month before, when her teacher departed from the prescribed course and taught an entire month of Black history.

After conferring with the patrolman, the driver continued his route. At the next stop, a block off Dexter Avenue, a police squad car waited. Two officers boarded the bus and Colvin made her defiance of the ordinance clear.

“I told them that history had me glued to the seat,” said Colvin. When the officers asked what she meant by that, she replied that Harriet Tubman’s hand was holding her down by one shoulder and Sojourner Truth’s was holding down the other.

“These two historical women, that I felt were so courageous, inspired me to let these white people know that what they were doing was unfair,” Colvin declared. When she passively resisted being moved from her seat, the policemen dragged her from the bus.

Colvin was subjected to sexual innuendos by the arresting officers and, after arriving at police headquarters and being processed, further harassed verbally by other officers in the building. She was placed in the adult jail, rather than being carried to the city’s juvenile detention facility.

“That’s when the fear came over me,” Colvin remembered of entering the cell. “Once you’re locked in and you can’t get out, that’s fear itself.”

Colvin’s mother was notified of her arrest and came with their pastor to post bail for the 15-year-old. Noted civil rights attorney Fred Gray represented Colvin in juvenile court and, later, before the Montgomery County Circuit Court. Ultimately, though two charges were dropped, she was wrongly convicted of assaulting a police officer. Colvin later was among the plaintiffs in a bus desegregation suit filed by Gray, but the arrest and conviction remained on her record.

Leaders of the growing movement considered using Colvin’s case to directly challenge Montgomery’s segregation laws. Because of her age and the fact that she was expecting a baby out of wedlock, it was decided that hers was not an ideal test case, due in part to the negative attention Colvin’s pregnancy would generate.

Nine months later, seamstress and activist Rosa Parks was arrested for the same offense Colvin committed. Parks’ arrest triggered the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and America’s civil rights movement began in earnest.

Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed, right, speaks about the efforts to expunge the civil rights era police record of Claudette Colvin, in wheelchair, who was arrested at 15 after she refused to relinquish her seat on a Montgomery bus to a white woman. The incident occurred nine months before the similar and more famous incident involving Rosa Parks. (Mark Kelly / Alabama NewsCenter)

Marking the journey

“She is a part of my journey,” Veronica Jackson, who drove from her home in Tuskegee with her 5-year-old daughter, also named Veronica, said outside Family Court. “It’s important for my daughter to be here to learn about justice and how long it can take. For me, being here brings faith, strength and motivation. It’s something I can reflect on when I encounter obstacles.”

Patricia C. Wilson, a retired archivist for the Alabama Department of Archives and History, attended with her daughter, Beatrice Bibb. Close by were her grandsons, Tyler, a high school freshman, and Jeremiah, a toddler seated contentedly in his stroller.

“This is history, and they need to see it,” Wilson said. “Ms. Colvin did nothing wrong. She defied a system that was wrong and stood up for what is right.”

Alabama officials support clearing Claudette Colvin’s civil rights arrest record from Alabama NewsCenter on Vimeo.

Colvin, now 82, arrived a few minutes later, in a small convoy that included relatives, friends and other supporters of her petition. As the crowd applauded, she was assisted into a wheelchair and moved toward the door inside for the official filing, accompanied by a steady chant:

“Claudette, we love you! Claudette, we thank you!”

 Gratitude for sacrifice

Emerging from inside the facility, Colvin was wheeled to a spot near a podium set in the shade of a large, spreading oak tree. Along with the crowd, she listened as several key supporters paid tribute to her perseverance. Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed said Colvin’s petition was important in part “because of the message we want to send here in Montgomery.”

Supporters greet Claudette Colvin as she arrives at Montgomery County Family Court. (Mark Kelly / Alabama NewsCenter)

“Symbols matter,” Reed told the crowd. “We know that’s not everything when it comes to some of the challenges we have in our city, our state and our nation. But we also know it’s important to thank those who sacrificed for us to be where we are.”

Montgomery County District Attorney Daryl D. Bailey also urged the court to approve Colvin’s petition and expunge her record. Bailey said Colvin’s ordeal is “an embarrassment” that he wants to help correct.

“It’s my personal honor to support the motion to forever set aside the records that taint Ms. Colvin as a violator of the law,” said Bailey. “Ms. Colvin’s bravery and sense of justice defied her 15 years of youth. Her actions were conscientious, not criminal.”

Attorney Fred Gray recalled the circumstances of Colvin’s arrest and his representation of her in the legal proceedings that followed. Gray said he was “delighted” to see the petition for expungement moving forward.

“I’m happy for what is taking place here,” declared Gray, who said he is encouraged by the support for Colvin and other signs of Montgomery’s continued progress.

After the program’s conclusion, one of the legal team that filed the petition on Colvin’s behalf said there’s no timetable for the court to rule on the petition. Phillip Ensler — now the executive director of the Jewish Federation of Central Alabama — was a top aide to Mayor Reed who was tasked with navigating the process of filing the petition.

“The judge can rule anytime, either granting the petition or rejecting it,” Ensler said. “The record needs to be cleared, and we’re hopeful that it will be.”

The source of courage

Later, Colvin met briefly with reporters following a reception at the Montgomery City-County Public Library. Asked how she felt about the filing of her petition, she smiled, joking that, “I guess you can say that I’m no longer a juvenile delinquent.” Asked what gave her the courage to resist segregation, Colvin reflected more seriously.

“I grew up going to Sunday School,” she recalled. “And all we talked about was good and evil, right and wrong. That’s what gave me the courage, the values that I learned in church. We still have to have that courage today.”