At a ceremony unveiling a statue in her honor last month, President
Obama called Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery,
Alabama, city bus a "singular act of disobedience." But nine months
before Parks’ historic action, a 15-year-old teenager named Claudette
Colvin did the very same thing. She was arrested and her case led to the
U.S. Supreme Court’s order for the desegregation of Alabama’s bus
system. Now 73, Claudette Colvin joins us for a rare interview along
with Brooklyn College Professor Jeanne Theoharis, author of the "The
Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks." Theoharis says Parks’ act of
defiance may not have happened if not for Colvin’s nine months before.
Colvin says learning about African-American history in school inspired
her act. "I could not move because history had me glued to the seat,"
she recalls telling the bus driver and the police officer who came to
arrest her. "It felt like Sojourner Truth’s hands were pushing down on
one shoulder, and Harriet Tubman’s hand pushing down on another
shoulder."
Video
Source: Democracy Now!
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Video
Source: Democracy Now!
Author: -
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