Claudette Colvin by Phillip Hoose Page A

couldn’t make you get up and stand if there was no seat available for you to go to—but I did. When the driver told me to go back, there
was
no other seat. I hadn’t broken the law. And assaulting a police officer? I probably wouldn’t have lived for very long if I had assaulted those officers.
    When I got back to school, more and more students seemed to turn against me. Everywhere I went people pointed at me and whispered. Some kids would snicker when they saw me coming down the hall. “It’s my constitutional right! It’s my constitutional right!” I had taken a stand for my people. I had stood up for our rights. I hadn’t expected to become a hero, but I sure didn’t expect this.
    I cried a lot, and people saw me cry. They kept saying I was “emotional.” Well, who wouldn’t be emotional after something like that? Tell me, who wouldn’t cry?

    The newspaper article on the facing page appeared in the
Alabama Journal
on March 19, 1955

CHAPTER SIX
“C RAZY ” T IMES
    I had crossed the line. I was free; but there was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom. I was a stranger in a strange land
.
    â€”Harriet Tubman
    Spring and Summer 1955
    T HE MORNING AFTER HER HEARING , an article about Claudette’s conviction appeared in the
Montgomery Advertiser
. Headlined “Negro Guilty of Violation of City Bus Segregation Law,” the story reminded readers that, according to the city code, “a bus driver has police power while in charge of a bus and must see that white and Negro passengers are segregated.”
    As word spread, an atmosphere of tension settled over Montgomery. “The verdict was a bombshell,” Jo Ann Robinson later wrote. “Blacks were as near a breaking point as they had ever been. Resentment, rebellion and unrest were evident in all Negro circles. For a few days, large numbers refused to use the buses . . . Complaints streamed in from everywhere.
    â€œThe question of boycotting came up again and loomed in the minds of thousands of black people,” Robinson continued. “On paper, the Women’s Political Council had already planned for fifty thousand notices calling people to boycott the buses; only the specifics of time and place had to be added . . . But some members were doubtful; some wanted to wait. The women wanted to be certain the entire citywas behind them, and opinions differed where Claudette was concerned. Some felt she was too young to be the trigger that precipitated the movement.”
    Was she too young? Could a rebellious teen be controlled? Who
was
this girl anyway? Robinson’s WPC lieutenants probed into Claudette’s background, since few adult leaders in Montgomery had ever heard of her. They already knew that her mother and father were not part of the elite social set that revolved around Alabama State College and the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. Investigation showed that Claudette Colvin was being raised by her great-uncle and great-aunt, respectively a “yard boy” and a “day lady,” as maids were called. The Colvins lived in King Hill, a neighborhood that meant “poor” or “inferior” to most who didn’t live there. And the Hutchinson Street Baptist Church, which Claudette faithfully attended, was a church for the working poor.

    This list, probably written by NAACP secretary Rosa Parks, shows contributions made by churches to “the Colvin case”
    Doubts crept in. A swarm of adjectives began to buzz around Claudette Colvin, words like “emotional” and “uncontrollable” and “profane” and “feisty.” The bottom line was, as Jo Ann Robinson tactfully put it, that “opinions differed where Claudette was concerned.” E. D. Nixon later explained, “I had to be sure that I had somebody I could win with.” So the leaders of the burgeoning Montgomery bus revolt turned away from Claudette