Rosa Parks was not the first
By : Mya Reid
Rosa parks was not the first; it was actually 15 year old Claudette Colvin. Claudette Colvin was a civil rights activist who was a pioneer in the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama during the 1950s. At the young age of 15, she refused to give up her seat on a bus months before Rosa Parks' more famous protest. Rosa Parks was a civil rights leader whose refusal to give up her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus led to the Montgomery bus boycott. Her bravery led to nationwide efforts to end racial segregation. Parks was awarded the Martin Luther King Jr. Award by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Congressional Gold Medal.
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing a bus driver's instructions to give up her seat to a white passenger. She later recalled that her refusal wasn't because she was physically tired, but that she was tired of giving in. However, she wasn’t the first to do so. On March 2, 1955, Colvin was riding home on a city bus after school when a bus driver told her to give up her seat to a white passenger. She refused, saying: "It's my constitutional right to sit here as much as that lady. I paid my fare; it's my constitutional right." Colvin felt compelled to stand her ground. "I felt like Sojourner Truth was pushing down on one shoulder and Harriet Tubman was pushing down on the other—saying, 'Sit down girl!' I was glued to my seat," she later told Newsweek. But the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) believed that Rosa Parks’ case provided an excellent opportunity to take further action to create real change. The reason for this is because the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People briefly considered using Colvin's case to challenge the segregation laws, but they decided against it because of her age. She also had become pregnant, and they thought an unwed mother would attract too much negative attention in a public legal battle. Her son, Raymond, was born in March 1956.
All throughout history young people have often been at the forefront of social progress in America. A good example like the one above is during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950’s- 60’s, youth worked to desegregate schools, register black voters, and protest systemic oppression. Today’s youth is no different; young people across the country are not only improving media representation for people of color, but promoting literacy education, while others are speaking out against bullying, and so much more. In honor of Black History Month, I wrote this article to shine a light on young African-American leaders who are raising their voices, advocating for their causes, and fighting for a better future.
Florcy Romero and Cheyenne Wyzzard-Jones are the leaders of Women of Color in Solidarity, a collective that convenes women/females of color to educate, heal, and resist together. In their powerful response to the Charlottesville violence, they sent the message that the resistance movement “needs to be led by women/females of color.” This team of young women of color—all under 25— have been actively building power for that resistance, working with other groups to bring women of color together for conversations, workshops, and solidarity-building, including a conference not only by but also for women of color in April along with digital activism training in July. “The KKK, neo-Nazis, and other white supremacist groups are organizing... through a common purpose, hatred and whiteness...We need to get collectively organized [too].”
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