Remembering Claudette Colvin: pre-bus-boycott arrestee and victim of respectability politics

The unsung figure of the Civil Rights movement died in Texas 

Claudette Colvin shares a moment with her attorney from the civil-rights era, Fred Gray. She died on January 13.  image credit: AP Photo/Vasha Hunt

“Racism has no regard for respectability. Reminder: My father was assassinated while wearing a suit. Let’s be well because our wellness matters, not because the white gaze matters.” - Bernice King   

The term “respectability politics” wasn’t a part of the public dialogue during the Civil Rights Movement, but its principles were fully on display, and Claudette Colvin was likely one of its early victims. Before Rosa Parks, there were young people like Claudette Colvin.   The same year (1955), in the same city (Montgomery, Alabama), the same act (refusing to yield their seats to a white passenger), with even the same attorney (Fred Gray) – all yielded different results for each protestor. 

Colvin was a high school student who later became a teen mom. She lived in a poor neighborhood. Her skin was (gasp) dark. It’s widely believed civil rights leaders chose Parks – older, professional, better connected, lighter – to serve as their poster child for the movement. Colvin said even her own mother compared her unfavorably to Parks and discouraged her from talking about her contributions to the movement.   Many of today’s activists have moved away from the idea that Black people must be“respectable” in order to have our humanity respected. In 2020 George Floyd, a poor Black man with a criminal record sparked nationwide protests after his murder under the knee of a police officer.  

Colvin’s attorney, Fred Gray credits Colvin with giving them the “moral courage." Claudette Colvin didn’t need to be “respectable to be revolutionary” and neither do you.