The Girl History Forgot: The Story of Claudette Colvin

In March 1955, nine months before Rosa Parks, a 15-year-old girl in Montgomery, Alabama refused to give up her seat on a city bus. Her name was Claudette Colvin. She was arrested, and then passed over by the civil rights leaders who decided she was the wrong person to build a movement around.

But when the lawsuit that actually ended segregation on Montgomery's buses was filed, her name was one of only four on it. In this story from The Past Files, we follow Claudette Colvin from her arrest to Browder v. Gayle, to the price she paid, and to the last chapter of her life that happened in our own lifetime.

In this video:

• Who Claudette Colvin was and what happened on March 2, 1955

• Why the leaders did not choose her case

• How Rosa Parks's arrest sparked the Montgomery bus boycott

• Browder v. Gayle: the lawsuit that ended bus segregation

• What happened to Claudette after 1956

• How her record was finally cleared in 2021

📚 Learn more:

• Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip Hoose (National Book Award for Young People's Literature, 2009)

• Browder v. Gayle (1956) court records

💬 Tell me in the comments: who else deserves to be remembered?

📩 Business:Thepastfilesofficial@gmail.com