Before the Mother came the Child

Before Rosa Parks made history by refusing to give up her seat on a bus, Claudette Colvin a 15 year old high school student did the same thing. She refused to give up her seat to a white women and was arrested. This sparked outrage in the community and planted the seeds that would birth the civil rights movement. Though her name doesn’t appear in any history books, her strength and ability to keep her story a secret were key elements to the success of the movement. Now her story can be told thanks to the persistence of Phillip Hoose in his work “Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice,” published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux.