Claudette Colvin by Phillip Hoose Read Free Book Online Page A

connections, trying to find someone to help me. My great-aunt’s husband, C. J. McNear, told my parents to get in touch with Mr. E. D. Nixon. C.J. thought my case might be a good civil rights case. Mr. Nixon called the shots in the black community of Montgomery. He knew everybody. So Mom called him. And he agreed to help us.

    N IXON MOVED SWIFTLY on two fronts. He called Fred Gray, one of Montgomery’s two black lawyers, and convinced him to represent Claudette in court. Then he organized a committee of black leaders to meet downtown with the police commissioner. Among those selected was the new pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church,twenty-six-year-old Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The attempt to obtain justice for Claudette Colvin marked Dr. King’s political debut.
    E. D. NIXON
    When black people had serious problems in Montgomery, they went to E. D. Nixon. Employed as a railroad sleeping car porter, Nixon worked tirelessly throughout his life to advance the rights of black people. A tall, rugged man with a commanding voice and an earthy sense of humor, Nixon seemed to know everyone: jailers, white policemen, judges, newspaper reporters, lawyers, and government officials. An early president of the Montgomery Chapter of the NAACP, Nixon was often able to fix common people’s problems through plain talk and informal dealing before they hardened into legal cases.
    A conference of black leaders, the bus company’s manager, and the police commissioner seemed to break the tension. “Both men were quite pleasant, and expressed deep concern over what had happened [to Claudette],” Dr. King later wrote. The bus company conceded that, according to the driver, Claudette had been sitting behind the ten white seats in front and there had been no seats available when the driver ordered her to move. That seemed to be an admission that she hadn’t broken the law. The police commissioner agreed the seating rules were confusing and promised that the city’s attorney would soon clarify them in writing. The one thing they didn’t do was drop the charges against Claudette. The trial would go on.
    Still, Dr. King walked out of the meeting feeling “hopeful,” and Jo Ann Robinson also felt her spirits lifting as she stepped outside. “[We] were given to understand . . . that . . . Claudette would be given every chance to clear her name,” she later wrote. “It was not [to be] a trial to determine guilt or innocence, but an effort to find out the truth, and if the girl were found innocent, her record would be clear . . . Those present left the conference feeling . . . that everything would work out fairly for everyone.”

    Plainspoken E. D. Nixon, longtime leader of the Montgomery NAACP
    In the days before Claudette’s trial, E. D. Nixon also called Rosa Parks, a soft-spoken, forty-two-year-old professional seamstress who had for many years been secretary of the Montgomery NAACP. Mrs. Parks was also the head of the NAACP’s youth group in Montgomery. Nixon and Mrs. Parks had long tried to get more young blacks involved in the struggle for civil rights, but the Sunday afternoon NAACP youth meetings were, for the most part, poorly attended. However, both saw promise in the dramatic arrest, jailing, and trial of a fifteen-year-old bus protester. It might spark interest if the girl was willing to tell her story. Nixon urged Mrs. Parks to get Claudette Colvin involved with the NAACP.

    C LAUDETTE: The first time I ever met Rosa Parks was one Sunday afternoon when she walked into a church before an NAACP youth meeting. There were only a few students around. This small, fair-skinned woman with long, straight hair came up to me, and looked me up and down. She said, “You’re Claudette Colvin? Oh my God, I was lookin’ for some big old burly overgrown teenager who sassed white people out . . . But no, they pulled a little girl off the bus.” I said, “They pulled