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Claudette Colvin
Colvin in 1952
Born	Claudette Austin (1939-09-05) September 5, 1939 (age 85) Montgomery, Alabama, U.S.
Occupation(s)	Civil rights activist, nurse aide
Years active	1969–2004 (as nurse aide)
Era	Civil rights movement (1954–1968)
Known for	Arrested at the age of 15 in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her seat to a white woman on a segregated bus, nine months before the similar Rosa Parks incident.
Children	2

Claudette Colvin (born Claudette Austin; September 5, 1939) is an American pioneer of the 1950s civil rights movement and retired nurse aide. On March 2, 1955, she was arrested at the age of 15 in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her seat to a white woman on a crowded, segregated bus. It occurred nine months before the similar, more widely known incident in which Rosa Parks, secretary of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), helped spark the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott.

Colvin was one of four plaintiffs in the first federal court case filed by civil rights attorney Fred Gray on February 1, 1956, as Browder v. Gayle, to challenge bus segregation in the city. In a United States district court, Colvin testified before the three-judge panel that heard the case. On June 13, 1956, the judges determined that the state and local laws requiring bus segregation in Alabama were unconstitutional. The case went to the United States Supreme Court on appeal by the state, which upheld the district court's ruling on November 13, 1956. One month later, the Supreme Court affirmed the order to Montgomery and the state of Alabama to end bus segregation. The Montgomery bus boycott was then called off after a few months. The court subsequently declared all segregation on public transportation unconstitutional.

For many years, Montgomery's black leaders did not publicize Colvin's pioneering effort. She has said, "Young people think Rosa Parks just sat down on a bus and ended segregation, but that wasn't the case at all." Colvin's case was dropped by civil rights campaigners because she was unmarried and pregnant during the proceedings. It is now widely accepted that she was not accredited by civil rights campaigners due to her circumstances. Rosa Parks said: "If the white press got ahold of that information, they would have a field day. They'd call her a bad girl, and her case wouldn't have a chance."

The record of Colvin's arrest and adjudication of delinquency was expunged by the district court in 2021, with the support of the district attorney for the county where the charges were brought more than 66 years earlier.

Early life

Claudette Colvin was born Claudette Austin in Montgomery, Alabama, on September 5, 1939, to Mary Jane Gadson and C. P. Austin. When Austin abandoned the family, Gadson was unable to financially support her children. Colvin and her younger sister, Delphine, were taken in by their great aunt and uncle, Mary Anne and Q. P. Colvin, whose daughter, Velma, had already moved out. Colvin and her sister referred to the Colvins as their parents and took their last name. When they took Claudette in, the Colvins lived in Pine Level, a small country town in Montgomery County, the same town where Rosa Parks grew up. When Colvin was eight years old, the Colvins moved to King Hill, a poor black neighborhood in Montgomery where she spent the rest of her childhood.

Two days before Colvin's 13th birthday, Delphine died of polio. Not long after, in September 1952, Colvin started attending Booker T. Washington High School. Despite being a good student, Colvin had difficulty connecting with her peers in school due to grief. She was also a member of the NAACP Youth Council, where she formed a close relationship with her mentor, Rosa Parks.

Bus incident

In 1955, Colvin was a student at the segregated Booker T. Washington High School in the city. She relied on the city's buses to get to and from school because her family did not own a car. The majority of customers on the bus system were African American, but they were discriminated against by its custom of segregated seating. Colvin was a member of the NAACP Youth Council and had been learning about the civil rights movement in school. On March 2, 1955, she was returning home from school. She sat in the colored section about two seats away from an emergency exit, in a Capitol Heights bus.

If the bus became so crowded that all the "white seats" in the front of the bus were filled until white people were standing, any African Americans were supposed to get up from nearby seats to make room for whites, move further to the back, and stand in the aisle if there were no free seats in that section. When a white woman who got on the bus was left standing in the front, the bus driver, Robert W. Cleere, commanded Colvin and three other black women in her row to move to the back. The other three moved, but another black woman, Ruth Hamilton, who was pregnant, got on and sat next to Colvin.

The driver looked at the women in his mirror. "He asked us both to get up. said she was not going to get up and that she had paid her fare and that she didn't feel like standing," recalls Colvin. "So I told him I was not going to get up either. So he said, 'If you are not going to get up, I will get a policeman.'" The police arrived and convinced a black man sitting behind the two women to move so that Mrs. Hamilton could move back, but Colvin still refused to move. She was forcibly removed from the bus and arrested by the two policemen, Thomas J. Ward and Paul Headley. This event took place nine months before the NAACP secretary Rosa Parks was arrested for the same offense. Colvin later said: "My mother told me to be quiet about what I did. She told me to let Rosa be the one: white people aren't going to bother Rosa, they like her". Colvin did not receive the same attention as Parks for a number of reasons: she did not have "good hair", she was not fair-skinned, she was a teenager, and she was pregnant. The leaders in the Civil Rights Movement tried to keep up appearances and make the "most appealing" protesters the most seen.

When Colvin refused to get up, she was thinking about a school paper she had written that day about the local customs that prohibited blacks from using the dressing rooms in order to try on clothes in department stores. In a later interview, she said: "We couldn't try on clothes. You had to take a brown paper bag and draw a diagram of your foot ... and take it to the store". Referring to the segregation on the bus and the white woman: "She couldn't sit in the same row as us because that would mean we were as good as her".

"The bus was getting crowded, and I remember the bus driver looking through the rearview mirror asking her to get up for the white woman, which she didn't," said Annie Larkins Price, a classmate of Colvin. "She had been yelling, 'It's my constitutional right!'. She decided on that day that she wasn't going to move." Colvin recalled, "History kept me stuck to my seat. I felt the hand of Harriet Tubman pushing down on one shoulder and Sojourner Truth pushing down on the other." Colvin was handcuffed, arrested, and forcibly removed from the bus. She shouted that her constitutional rights were being violated. Colvin said, "But I made a personal statement, too, one that didn't make and probably couldn't have made. Mine was the first cry for justice, and a loud one."

The police officers who took her to the station made sexual comments about her body and took turns guessing her bra size throughout the ride. Price testified for Colvin, who was tried in juvenile court. Colvin was initially charged with disturbing the peace, violating the segregation laws, and battering and assaulting a police officer. "There was no assault", Price said.

She also said in the 2009 book Claudette Colvin: Twice Towards Justice, by Phillip Hoose, that one of the police officers sat in the back seat with her. This made her very scared that they would sexually assault her because this happened frequently. A group of black civil rights leaders including Martin Luther King Jr. was organized to discuss Colvin's arrest with the police commissioner. She was bailed out by her minister, who told her that she had brought the revolution to Montgomery.

Through the trial Colvin was represented by Fred Gray, a lawyer for the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), which was organizing civil rights actions. She was convicted on all three charges in juvenile court. When Colvin's case was appealed to the Montgomery Circuit Court on May 6, 1955, the charges of disturbing the peace and violating the segregation laws were dropped, although her conviction for assaulting a police officer was upheld.

Colvin's moment of activism was not solitary or random. In high school, she had high ambitions of political activity. She dreamed of becoming the President of the United States. Her political inclination was fueled in part by an incident with her schoolmate, Jeremiah Reeves; his case was the first time that she had witnessed the work of the NAACP. Reeves was found having sexual intercourse with a white woman who claimed she was raped, though Reeves claims their relations were consensual. He was executed for his alleged crimes.

Browder v. Gayle

Together with Aurelia S. Browder, Susie McDonald, Mary Louise Smith, and Jeanetta Reese, Colvin was one of the five plaintiffs in the court case of Browder v. Gayle. Jeanetta Reese later resigned from the case. The case, organized and filed in federal court by civil rights attorney Fred Gray, challenged city bus segregation in Montgomery as unconstitutional. During the court case, Colvin described her arrest: "I kept saying, 'He has no civil right... this is my constitutional right... you have no right to do this.' And I just kept blabbing things out, and I never stopped. That was worse than stealing, you know, talking back to a white person."

Browder v. Gayle made its way through the courts. On June 5, 1956, the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama issued a ruling declaring the state of Alabama and Montgomery's laws mandating public bus segregation as unconstitutional. State and local officials appealed the case to the United States Supreme Court. The Supreme Court summarily affirmed the District Court decision on November 13, 1956. One month later, the Supreme Court declined to reconsider, and on December 20, 1956, the court ordered Montgomery and the state of Alabama to end bus segregation permanently.

The Montgomery bus boycott was able to unify the people of Montgomery, regardless of educational background or class.

Life after activism

Colvin gave birth to a son, Raymond, in March 1956. Colvin left Montgomery for New York City in 1958, because she had difficulty finding and keeping work following her participation in the federal court case that overturned bus segregation. Similarly, Rosa Parks left Montgomery for Detroit in 1957. Colvin stated she was branded a troublemaker by many in her community. She withdrew from college, and struggled in the local environment.

In New York, Colvin and her son Raymond initially lived with her older sister, Velma Colvin. In 1960, she gave birth to her second son, Randy. Claudette began a job in 1969 as a nurse's aide in a nursing home in Manhattan. She worked there for 35 years, retiring in 2004. Raymond Colvin died in 1993 in New York of a heart attack at age 37. Her son Randy is an accountant in Atlanta and father of Colvin's four grandchildren.

Legacy

Colvin was a predecessor to the Montgomery bus boycott movement of 1955, which gained national attention. But she rarely told her story after moving to New York City. The discussions in the black community began to focus on black enterprise rather than integration, although national civil rights legislation did not pass until 1964 and 1965. NPR's Margot Adler has said that black organizations believed that Rosa Parks would be a better figure for a test case for integration because she was an adult, had a job, and had a middle-class appearance. They felt she had the maturity to handle being at the center of potential controversy.

Colvin was not the only woman of the Civil Rights Movement who was left out of the history books. In the south, male ministers made up the overwhelming majority of leaders. This was partially a product of the outward face the NAACP was trying to broadcast and partially a product of the women fearing losing their jobs, which were often in the public school system.

In 2005, Colvin told the Montgomery Advertiser that she would not have changed her decision to remain seated on the bus: "I feel very, very proud of what I did," she said. "I do feel like what I did was a spark and it caught on." "I'm not disappointed. Let the people know Rosa Parks was the right person for the boycott. But also let them know that the attorneys took four other women to the Supreme Court to challenge the law that led to the end of segregation."

On May 20, 2018, Congressman Joe Crowley honored Colvin for her lifetime commitment to public service with a Congressional Certificate and an American flag.

Recognition

Colvin has often said she is not angry that she did not get more recognition; rather, she is disappointed. She said she felt as if she was "getting Christmas in January rather than the 25th."

I don’t think there’s room for many more icons. I think that history only has room enough for certain—you know, how many icons can you choose? So, you know, I think you compare history, like—most historians say Columbus discovered America, and it was already populated. But they don’t say that Columbus discovered America; they should say, for the European people, that is, you know, their discovery of the new world.

— Claudette Colvin

Colvin and her family have been fighting for recognition for her action. In 2016, the Smithsonian Institution and its National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) were challenged by Colvin and her family, who asked that Colvin be given a more prominent mention in the history of the civil rights movement. The NMAAHC has a section dedicated to Rosa Parks, which Colvin does not want taken away, but her family's goal is to get the historical record right, and for officials to include Colvin's part of history. Colvin was not invited officially for the formal dedication of the museum, which opened to the public in September 2016.

"All we want is the truth, why does history fail to get it right?" Colvin's sister, Gloria Laster, said. "Had it not been for Claudette Colvin, Aurelia Browder, Susie McDonald, and Mary Louise Smith, there may not have been a Thurgood Marshall, a Martin Luther King or a Rosa Parks."

In 2000, Troy University at Montgomery opened the Rosa Parks Museum in Montgomery to honor the town's place in civil rights history. Roy White, who was in charge of most of the project, asked Colvin if she would like to appear in a video to tell her story, but Colvin refused. She said, "They've already called it the Rosa Parks museum, so they've already made up their minds what the story is."

In 2010, the street Colvin lived on when she was a young girl was named Claudette Colvin Drive in her honor. It is located off Upper Wetumpka Road in Montgomery, Alabama.

Reverend Joseph Rembert has said, "If nobody did anything for Claudette Colvin in the past why don't we do something for her right now?" He contacted Montgomery Councilmen Tracy Larkin (whose sister was on the bus in 1955 when Colvin was arrested) and Charles Jinright, and in 2017, the Council passed a resolution for a proclamation honoring Colvin. March 2 was named Claudette Colvin Day in Montgomery. Mayor Todd Strange presented the proclamation and, when speaking of Colvin, said, "She was an early foot soldier in our civil rights, and we did not want this opportunity to go by without declaring March 2 as Claudette Colvin Day to thank her for her leadership in the modern day civil rights movement." Rembert said, "I know people have heard her name before, but I just thought we should have a day to celebrate her." Colvin could not attend the proclamation due to health concerns.

In 2019, a statue of Rosa Parks was unveiled in Montgomery, Alabama, and four granite markers were also unveiled near the statue on the same day to honor the four plaintiffs in Browder v. Gayle, including Colvin.

In 2021, Colvin applied to the family court in Montgomery County, Alabama to have her juvenile record expunged. Daryl Bailey, the District Attorney for the county, supported her motion, stating: "Her actions back in March of 1955 were conscientious, not criminal; inspired, not illegal; they should have led to praise and not prosecution". The judge ordered that the juvenile record be expunged and destroyed in December 2021, stating that Colvin's refusal had "been recognized as a courageous act on her behalf and on behalf of a community of affected people".

Also in 2021, a mural honoring Colvin was unveiled, along Claudette Colvin Drive, in Montgomery, Alabama.

In culture

Former US Poet Laureate Rita Dove memorialized Colvin in her poem "Claudette Colvin Goes To Work", published in her 1999 book On the Bus with Rosa Parks; folk singer John McCutcheon turned this poem into a song, which was first publicly performed in Charlottesville, Virginia's Paramount Theater in 2006.

Young adult book Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice, by Phillip Hoose, was published in 2009 and won the National Book Award for Young People's Literature.

A re-enactment of Colvin's resistance is portrayed in a 2014 episode of the comedy TV series Drunk History about Montgomery, Alabama. She was played by Mariah Iman Wilson.

In the second season (2013) of the HBO drama series The Newsroom, the lead character, Will McAvoy (played by Jeff Daniels), uses Colvin's refusal to comply with segregation as an example of how "one thing" can change everything. He remarks that if the ACLU had used her act of civil disobedience, rather than that of Rosa Parks' eight months later, to highlight the injustice of segregation, a young preacher named Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. may never have attracted national attention, and America probably would not have had his voice for the Civil Rights Movement.

The Little-Known Heroes: Claudette Colvin, a children's picture book by Kaushay and Spencer Ford, was published in 2021.

In 2022, a biopic of Colvin titled Spark written by Niceole R. Levy and directed by Anthony Mackie was announced.

See also

• Aurelia Browder
• Keys v. Carolina Coach Co.
• List of civil rights leaders
• Susie McDonald
• Montgomery bus boycott
• Irene Morgan
• E. D. Nixon
• Mary Louise Smith
• Viola White
• Dovey Johnson Roundtree

References

1. "Claudette Colvin". Biography.com. Retrieved January 29, 2018.
2. ^ Gordon, Samantha (2015). Power Dynamics of a Segregated City: Class, Gender, and Claudette Colvin's Struggle for Equality (MA thesis). Sarah Lawrence College. Retrieved February 23, 2021.
3. "Before Rosa Parks, Claudette Colvin Stayed in Her Bus Seat". aauw.org. American Association of University Women. March 21, 2012. Archived from the original on November 22, 2019. Retrieved May 26, 2019.
4. ^ Barnes, Brooks (November 25, 2009). "From Footnote to Fame in Civil Rights History". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved October 27, 2017.
5. ^ Hoose, Phillip (2009). Claudette Colvin: Twice Towards Justice. Melanie Kroupa Books. ISBN 978-1429948210.
6. ^ Younge, Gary (December 16, 2000). "She would not be moved". The Guardian. London.
7. Kramer, Sarah Kate (March 2, 2015). "Before Rosa Parks, A Teenager Defied Segregation On An Alabama Bus". NPR. Retrieved March 2, 2018.
8. "Claudette Colvin". The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks. May 18, 2016. Retrieved March 2, 2021.
9. Hoose, Phillip (2009). Claudette Colvin: Twice Towards Justice. Melanie Kroupa Books. p. 11. ISBN 978-1429948210.
10. Brinkley, Douglas (2000). "Chapter 1 (excerpt): 'Up From Pine Level'". Rosa Parks. Lipper/Viking; excerpt published in The New York Times. ISBN 0-670-89160-6. Retrieved July 1, 2008.
11. Blattman, Elissa. "#ThrowbackThursday: The girl who acted before Rosa Parks". NWHM.org. National Women's History Museum. Archived from the original on July 29, 2016. Retrieved February 9, 2016.
12. Hoose, Phillip (2009). Claudette Colvin: Twice Towards Justice. Melanie Kroupa Books. p. 15. ISBN 978-1429948210.
13. Hoose, Phillip (2009). Claudette Colvin: Twice Towards Justice. Melanie Kroupa Books. pp. 18–19. ISBN 978-1429948210.
14. "Claudette Colvin: an unsung hero in the Montgomery Bus Boycott". Jet. FindArticles. February 28, 2005. Archived from the original on May 23, 2005. Retrieved November 27, 2009.
15. Garrow, David J. (October 1985). "The Origins of the Montgomery Bus Boycott" (PDF). Southern Changes. 7: 21–27.
16. ^ Adler, Margot (March 15, 2009). "Before Rosa Parks, There Was Claudette". NPR. Retrieved November 24, 2013.
17. Williams, Donnie; Greenhaw, Wayne (2007). Thunder of Angels: The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the People Who Broke the Back of Jim Crow. Chicago: Chicago Review Press. p. 49. ISBN 9781556526763 – via Google Books.
18. ^ Gray, Eliza (March 2, 2009). "A Forgotten Contribution: Before Rosa Parks, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin refused to give up her seat on the bus". Newsweek. Archived from the original on April 1, 2009. Retrieved November 26, 2009.
19. Seelinger Trites, Roberta (2018). "Intersectionalities and Multiplicities: Race and Materiality in Literature for the Young". Twenty-First-Century Feminisms in Children's and Adolescent Literature. Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi. pp. 31–58. doi:10.2307/j.ctv5jxnst. ISBN 978-1-4968-1384-8. JSTOR j.ctv5jxnst.6.
20. ^ Brinkley, Douglas (2000). Rosa Parks. Viking. ISBN 978-0-670-89160-3.
21. ^ Dawkins, Amanda (February 7, 2005). "'Unsung hero' of boycott paved way for Parks". The Huntsville Times. p. 6B.
22. Hoose, Phillip. "Claudette Colvin: First to keep her seat". Philadelphia Tribune.
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25. Laughland, Oliver (February 25, 2021). "Claudette Colvin: the woman who refused to give up her bus seat – nine months before Rosa Parks". The Guardian. Retrieved February 25, 2021.
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28. ^ Spratling, Cassandra (November 16, 2005). "2 other bus boycott heroes praise Parks' acclaim". Chicago Tribune. p. 2.
29. Carson, C. (January 1, 2005). "To Walk in Dignity: The Montgomery Bus Boycott". OAH Magazine of History. 19 (1): 13–15. doi:10.1093/maghis/19.1.13.
30. ^ Hoose, Phillip (April 1, 2016). "This once-forgotten civil rights hero deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved October 30, 2022.
31. Barnes, Brooks (November 26, 2009). "From Footnote to Fame in Civil Rights History". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved October 30, 2022.
32. Garrow, David J. (2017). "In Honor of Fred Gray: The Meaning of Montgomery". Case Western Reserve Law Review. 67 (4). Case Western Reserve University: 1045–1053.
33. Kitchen, Sebastian (February 4, 2005). "Colvin helped light flame of civil rights". Montgomery Advertiser. p. 1.
34. "Chairman Crowley Honors Civil Rights Pioneer Claudette Colvin". Queens Gazette. May 30, 2018. Retrieved May 16, 2020.
35. Kitchen, Sebastian. "Claudette Colvin". Montgomery Advertiser. Retrieved February 8, 2016 – via MontgomeryBusBoycott.com.
36. "The Other Rosa Parks: Now 73, Claudette Colvin Was First to Refuse Giving Up Seat on Montgomery Bus". Democracy Now!. Retrieved November 3, 2017.
37. ^ "Claudette Colvin Seeks Greater Recognition For Role In Making Civil Rights History". newyork.cbslocal.com. WINS. November 30, 2016. Retrieved November 3, 2017.
38. Younge, Gary (December 16, 2000). "Weekend: Civil rights heroine Claudette Colvin". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved November 3, 2017.
39. "Who was Claudette Colvin? Honoring the Montgomery woman arrested for refusing to give up bus seat".
40. "Claudette Colvin honored by Montgomery council". The Montgomery Advertiser. Retrieved November 3, 2017.
41. "Browder v. Gayle, 352 U.S. 903". kinginstitute.stanford.edu. The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute. April 24, 2017. Retrieved December 9, 2019.
42. "Alabama unveils statue of civil rights icon Rosa Parks". Richmond Free Press. Richmond, Virginia. 2019. Retrieved December 9, 2019.
43. "Rosa Parks statue unveiled in Alabama on anniversary of her refusal to give up seat". WJLA.com. Retrieved December 9, 2019.
44. "She refused to move bus seats months before Rosa Parks. At 82, her arrest is expunged". NPR. Associated Press. December 16, 2021. Retrieved December 19, 2021.
45. Kirkland, Pamela (December 16, 2021). "Claudette Colvin's juvenile record has been expunged, 66 years after she was arrested for refusing to give her bus seat to a White person". CNN.
46. Johnson, Krista. "'An element of hope': Claudette Colvin mural unveiled as major step in revitalizing King Hill". Montgomery Advertiser.
47. "Claudette Colvin Goes to Work". Dissident Voices | The Poetry of Resistance. May 12, 2017. Archived from the original on October 19, 2019. Retrieved August 25, 2019.
48. "John McCutcheon sings Rita Dove's 'Claudette Colvin'". March 28, 2007. Archived from the original on December 11, 2021. Retrieved August 25, 2019 – via YouTube.
49. "National Book Awards - 2009". National Book Foundation. Retrieved November 21, 2014.
50. "The Newsroom - Will McAvoy On Historical Hypotheticals". November 11, 2013. Archived from the original on December 11, 2021. Retrieved October 27, 2017 – via YouTube.
51. "Claudette Colvin (Hard Cover)". February 26, 2021.
52. Grass, Jonathan (January 20, 2022). "Report: Biopic about civil rights pioneer Claudette Colvin in the works". www.wsfa.com. Retrieved January 21, 2022.

Further reading

• Phillip Hoose. Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR), Claudette Colvin, Twice Toward Justice. (2009). ISBN 0-374-31322-9.
• Taylor Branch. New York, Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, Parting The Waters - American in the King Years 1954-63. (1988). ISBN 0-671-68742-5.

External links

• The Other Rosa Parks (Colvin interview with Democracy Now!)
• She had a Dream
• Daybreak of Freedom: The Montgomery Bus Boycott (Preface)
• Daybreak of Freedom: The Montgomery Bus Boycott (Excerpt)
• "Browder v. Gayle: The Women Before Rosa Parks", Tolerance
• Vanessa de la Torre, "In The Shadow of Rosa Parks: 'Unsung Hero' of Civil Rights Movement Speaks Out", The Cardinal Inquirer, January 20, 2005
• "She Would not be Moved", The Guardian
• "An asterisk, not a star, of black history", Pulsejournal
• Let us Look at Jim Crow for the Criminal he is - Rosa Parks' bus stand and the long history of bus resistance The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, Rosa Parks Biography by Jeanne Theoharis, Say Burgin, and Jessica Murray, City University of New York

v t e Civil rights movement (1954–1968)
Events (timeline)	Prior to 1954 Journey of Reconciliation Executive Order 9981 Murders of Harry and Harriette Moore Sweatt v. Painter (1950) McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents (1950) Baton Rouge bus boycott 1954–1959 Brown v. Board of Education Bolling v. Sharpe Briggs v. Elliott Davis v. Prince Edward County Gebhart v. Belton Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company Emmett Till Montgomery bus boycott Browder v. Gayle Tallahassee bus boycott Mansfield school desegregation 1957 Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom "Give Us the Ballot" Royal Ice Cream sit-in Little Rock Nine Cooper v. Aaron Civil Rights Act of 1957 Ministers' Manifesto Katz Drug Store sit-in Kissing Case Biloxi wade-ins 1960–1963 New Year's Day March Sit-in movement Greensboro sit-ins Nashville sit-ins Sibley Commission Atlanta sit-ins Savannah Protest Movement Greenville Eight Civil Rights Act of 1960 Ax Handle Saturday Gomillion v. Lightfoot Boynton v. Virginia University of Georgia desegregation riot Rock Hill sit-ins Robert F. Kennedy's Law Day Address Freedom Rides Anniston bombing Birmingham attack Garner v. Louisiana Albany Movement Cambridge movement University of Chicago sit-ins "Second Emancipation Proclamation" Meredith enrollment, Ole Miss riot Atlanta's Berlin Wall "Segregation now, segregation forever" Stand in the Schoolhouse Door 1963 Birmingham campaign Letter from Birmingham Jail Children's Crusade Birmingham riot 16th Street Baptist Church bombing John F. Kennedy's speech to the nation on Civil Rights Detroit Walk to Freedom March on Washington "I Have a Dream" Big Six St. Augustine movement 1964–1968 Twenty-fourth Amendment Chester school protests Bloody Tuesday 1964 Monson Motor Lodge protests Freedom Summer workers' murders Civil Rights Act of 1964 Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States Katzenbach v. McClung 1964–1965 Scripto strike 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches "How Long, Not Long" Voting Rights Act of 1965 Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections March Against Fear White House Conference on Civil Rights Chicago Freedom Movement/Chicago open housing movement Loving v. Virginia Memphis sanitation strike King assassination funeral riots Civil Rights Act of 1968 Poor People's Campaign Green v. County School Board of New Kent County Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co. 1968 Olympics Black Power salute
Activist groups	Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights Atlanta Negro Voters League Atlanta Student Movement Black Panther Party Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) Committee for Freedom Now Committee on Appeal for Human Rights An Appeal for Human Rights Council for United Civil Rights Leadership Council of Federated Organizations Dallas County Voters League Deacons for Defense and Justice Georgia Council on Human Relations Highlander Folk School Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights Lowndes County Freedom Organization Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party Montgomery Improvement Association NAACP Youth Council Nashville Student Movement Nation of Islam Northern Student Movement National Council of Negro Women National Urban League Operation Breadbasket Regional Council of Negro Leadership Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) Southern Regional Council Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) The Freedom Singers United Auto Workers (UAW) Wednesdays in Mississippi Women's Political Council
Activists	Ralph Abernathy Victoria Gray Adams Zev Aelony Mathew Ahmann Muhammad Ali William G. Anderson Gwendolyn Armstrong Arnold Aronson Ella Baker James Baldwin Marion Barry Daisy Bates Harry Belafonte James Bevel Claude Black Gloria Blackwell Randolph Blackwell Unita Blackwell Ezell Blair Jr. Joanne Bland Julian Bond Joseph E. Boone William Holmes Borders Amelia Boynton Bruce Boynton Raylawni Branch Stanley Branche Ruby Bridges Aurelia Browder H. Rap Brown Ralph Bunche John H. Calhoun Guy Carawan Stokely Carmichael Johnnie Carr James Chaney J. L. Chestnut Shirley Chisholm Colia Lafayette Clark Ramsey Clark Septima Clark Xernona Clayton Eldridge Cleaver Kathleen Cleaver Josephine Dobbs Clement Charles E. Cobb Jr. Annie Lee Cooper Dorothy Cotton Claudette Colvin Vernon Dahmer Jonathan Daniels Abraham Lincoln Davis Angela Davis Joseph DeLaine Dave Dennis Annie Bell Robinson Devine John Wesley Dobbs Patricia Stephens Due Joseph Ellwanger Charles Evers Medgar Evers Myrlie Evers-Williams Chuck Fager James Farmer Walter Fauntroy James Forman Marie Foster Golden Frinks Andrew Goodman Robert Graetz Fred Gray Jack Greenberg Dick Gregory Lawrence Guyot Prathia Hall Fannie Lou Hamer Fred Hampton William E. Harbour Vincent Harding Dorothy Height Audrey Faye Hendricks Lola Hendricks Aaron Henry Oliver Hill Donald L. Hollowell James Hood Myles Horton Zilphia Horton T. R. M. Howard Ruby Hurley Cecil Ivory Jesse Jackson Jimmie Lee Jackson Richie Jean Jackson T. J. Jemison Esau Jenkins Barbara Rose Johns Vernon Johns Frank Minis Johnson Clarence Jones J. Charles Jones Matthew Jones Vernon Jordan Tom Kahn Clyde Kennard A. D. King C.B. King Coretta Scott King Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Sr. Bernard Lafayette James Lawson Bernard Lee Sanford R. Leigh Jim Letherer Stanley Levison John Lewis Viola Liuzzo Z. Alexander Looby Joseph Lowery Clara Luper Danny Lyon Malcolm X Mae Mallory Vivian Malone Bob Mants Thurgood Marshall Benjamin Mays Franklin McCain Charles McDew Ralph McGill Floyd McKissick Joseph McNeil James Meredith William Ming Jack Minnis Amzie Moore Cecil B. Moore Douglas E. Moore Harriette Moore Harry T. Moore Queen Mother Moore William Lewis Moore Irene Morgan Bob Moses William Moyer Elijah Muhammad Diane Nash Charles Neblett Huey P. Newton Edgar Nixon Jack O'Dell James Orange Rosa Parks James Peck Charles Person Homer Plessy Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Fay Bellamy Powell Rodney N. Powell Al Raby Lincoln Ragsdale A. Philip Randolph George Raymond George Raymond Jr. Bernice Johnson Reagon Cordell Reagon James Reeb Frederick D. Reese Walter Reuther Gloria Richardson David Richmond Bernice Robinson Jo Ann Robinson Angela Russell Bayard Rustin Bernie Sanders Michael Schwerner Bobby Seale Pete Seeger Cleveland Sellers Charles Sherrod Alexander D. Shimkin Fred Shuttlesworth Modjeska Monteith Simkins Glenn E. Smiley A. Maceo Smith Kelly Miller Smith Mary Louise Smith Maxine Smith Ruby Doris Smith-Robinson Charles Kenzie Steele Hank Thomas Dorothy Tillman A. P. Tureaud Hartman Turnbow Albert Turner C. T. Vivian A. T. Walden Wyatt Tee Walker Hollis Watkins Walter Francis White Roy Wilkins Hosea Williams Kale Williams Robert F. Williams Q. V. Williamson Andrew Young Whitney Young Sammy Younge Jr. Bob Zellner James Zwerg
By region	Omaha, Nebraska South Carolina
Movement songs	"Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me 'Round" "If You Miss Me at the Back of the Bus" "Kumbaya" "Keep Your Eyes on the Prize" "Oh, Freedom" "This Little Light of Mine" "We Shall Not Be Moved" "We Shall Overcome" "Woke Up This Morning (With My Mind Stayed On Freedom)"
Influences	Nonviolence Padayatra Sermon on the Mount Mahatma Gandhi Ahimsa Satyagraha The Kingdom of God Is Within You Frederick Douglass W. E. B. Du Bois Mary McLeod Bethune
Related	Jim Crow laws Lynching in the United States Plessy v. Ferguson Separate but equal Buchanan v. Warley Hocutt v. Wilson Sweatt v. Painter Hernandez v. Texas Loving v. Virginia African-American women in the movement Jews in the civil rights movement Fifth Circuit Four 16th Street Baptist Church Kelly Ingram Park A.G. Gaston Motel Bethel Baptist Church Brown Chapel Dexter Avenue Baptist Church Holt Street Baptist Church Edmund Pettus Bridge March on Washington Movement African-American churches attacked List of lynching victims in the United States Freedom Schools Freedom songs Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence" Voter Education Project 1960s counterculture African American founding fathers of the United States Eyes on the Prize
Legacy	In popular culture Birmingham Civil Rights Institute Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument Civil Rights Memorial Civil Rights Movement Archive Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument Freedom Rides Museum Freedom Riders National Monument King Center for Nonviolent Social Change Martin Luther King Jr. Day Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial other King memorials Mississippi Civil Rights Museum National Civil Rights Museum National Voting Rights Museum St. Augustine Foot Soldiers Monument Olympic Black Power Statue
Noted historians	Taylor Branch Clayborne Carson John Dittmer Michael Eric Dyson Chuck Fager Adam Fairclough David Garrow David Halberstam Vincent Harding Steven F. Lawson Doug McAdam Diane McWhorter Charles M. Payne Thomas E. Ricks Timothy Tyson Akinyele Umoja Movement photographers
Civil rights movement portal

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