The Bus Incident

On March 2, 1955 Claudette Colvin became the first African American person to be arrested in Montgomery, Alabama for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white person. On this Spring day Colvin and three of her female classmates boarded a public bus on their way home from Booker T. Washington High School. Colvin was only 15 years old at this time. Colvin and her friends were seated in a section of the bus where black people were allowed to sit, but only if white people had an adequate amount of seating in the front of the bus. If a white person needed a seat on the bus, black people were expected to vacate the entire row so that the white person would not be sitting in the same row as a black person (Younge, p. 1). When a white woman demanded that Claudette and her friends leave their seats, Claudette's friends all left, but Claudette remained unmoved. When Colvin refused to leave her seat the bus driver called the police, who then dragged Colvin from the bus (Abdulaleem, p. 1). Colvin is quoted as saying "it is my constitutional right" as she was being dragged from the bus. Colvin also argued that because she had paid her bus fare and she was not sitting in the white section of the bus, she had not broken any laws (Abdulaleem, p. 1).

Works Cited
Younge, Gary. "She Would Not Be Moved." The Guardian 16 Dec. 2000. Print.
 Abdulaleem, Maryam. "Before There Was Rosa Parks, There Was Claudette Colvin." The New York Amsterdam News 2009. Print.