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Wed, 03.02.1955

Black Teen Jailed for Bus Seating Violation

Claudette Colvin

*On this date in 1955, 15-year-old Black teenager Claudette Colvin was arrested for refusing to move out of her seat for a white woman on a public bus in Montgomery, Alabama.

She violated the same Jim Crow segregation law that Rosa Parks encountered nine months later. Colvin was the first person to plead not guilty to such a charge. Her attorney, Fred Gray, raised constitutional issues in her defense, but she was convicted.

New Poem Each Day

Poetry Corner

O Africa, where I baked my bread In the streets at 15 through the San Francisco midnights… O Africa, whose San Francisco shouting-church on Geary Street and Webster saw a candle burning... O AFRICA, WHERE I BAKED MY BREAD by Lance Jeffers.
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