Claudette Calvin, the Original Spark to the Montgomery Bus Boycott

March 2, 1955 

Claudette Calvin, a 15 year old student with aspirations to become a Civil Rights Attorney, had finished the day at her high school Booker T Washington, a segregated school in Montgomery, Alabama. Hopping on the bus, Claudette sat right next to the exit door near the front of the bus. 

As the bus took off, she sat there comfortably, looking out the window until the bus driver told her to give up her seat to the white passenger standing next to her. This was one of the many racist Laws in the Jim Crow South, demanding Black people to give up their seat and go to the back of the bus when asked. 

Claudette Calvin refused. This law was an unjust law. And an unjust law is no law at all.

As two police officers dragged her off the bus by her arms and legs, she shouted “It is my constitutional right!” referring to her right to sit where she chooses just like any other human being, regardless of race. 

At 15 years old, she was placed in handcuffs, arrested and charged with violating segregation laws. 

Right after her arrest Claudette met Rosa Parks, who was then a secretary for the Montgomery branch of the NAACP. Claudette would sometimes stay at Rosa Parks’ home. 

Nine months after Claudette’s arrest, on December 1st 1955, Rosa Parks would become the face of the Montgomery bus boycott when she also refused to give up her seat to a white man while riding a public bus in Montgomery, Alabama.

Claudette believes she wasn’t selected by Civil Rights Leaders to become the face of the Montgomery bus boycott because she was dark-skinned, low income, and a teenager. This speaks to the elitist and colorist problems many believed plagued the NAACP and other older established civil rights organisations.