THE BACK OF THE BUS DUALITY

As you are all aware (or at least should be), a courageous black female in 1955 refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama to a white passenger. Her resulting arrest and subsequent legal proceedings ultimately resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court overturning bus segregation laws in Alabama and were the catalysts for the modern Civil Rights Movement.

The name of this societal pioneer was Claudette Colvin. Although Rosa Parks did a similar courageous act on a bus and achieved fame and a place in history commemorated by her receipt of the NAACP Springarn Medal, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal, a postage stamp with her image, a statue in the US Capitol Building, lying in state in the Capitol Rotunda after her death in 2005, and consideration of her portrait on the ten-dollar bill, Park's encounter with the Montgomery public transportation system did not take place until 9 months after Colvin had been arrested. In addition, Park's litigation contesting the Alabama segregation laws bogged down in state court while Colvin achieved victory at the Supreme Court. Unfortunately for Colvin, civil rights activists decided that Parks, as a quiet, dignified and married black woman with a job, would project a more sympathetic public image than Colvin, who was an outspoken, unmarried, pregnant, and unemployed teenager.

Colvin has often stated that she is not angry that she has not received the recognition that she deserves but instead is "disappointed."

The segregation of Montgomery buses went above and beyond "merely" stigmatizing Blacks as second-class citizens by requiring them to sit in an isolated area of the bus (although that, of course, was bad enough). Under the system, black passengers would fill the bus from the back forward and white passengers would fill it from the front to the back. When the two groups met in the middle, the black passengers sitting closest to the line of scrimmage were obligated to relinquish their seats and stand instead if any additional white passengers boarded. Also, in many instances, a black passenger had to board the front of the bus to pay his fare and then get off and walk to the back entrance to get to his seat. Often, in the middle of this process, the bus would take off and leave the black passenger stranded.

Both Colvin and Parks had not gotten on their respective buses with the intention of sitting in the white section to make a statement about civil rights; they both had initially sat in the back colored section and simply were fed up and refused to stand and give up their seats to others when the white area filled up and expanded into their locations.

Photo by Maksim via Wickimedia
ROSA PARKS'S BUS