n March 1955, nine months before Rosa Parks defied
segregation laws by refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on
a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin did exactly
the same thing. Eclipsed by Parks, her act of defiance was largely
ignored for many years. She herself didn't talk about it much, but she
spoke recently to the BBC.
"There was segregation
everywhere. The churches, buses and schools were all segregated and you
couldn't even go into the same restaurants," Claudette Colvin says.
"I
remember during Easter one year, I was to get a pair of black patent
shoes but you could only get them from the white stores, so my mother
drew the outline of my feet on a brown paper bag in order to get the
closest size, because we weren't allowed to go in the store to try them
on."
Surce: BBCNews
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