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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

They shall go down unto life’s Borderland, Walk unafraid within that Living Hell, Nor heed the driving rain of shot and shell That round them falls; but with uplifted hand Be one with... SONNET TO NEGRO SOLDIERS by Joseph Seaman Cotter Jr.
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