The Other Rosa Parks
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By Donna Liquori -- School Library Journal, 2/25/2009 2:10:00 PM
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Photo: Dave Hall |
For his book Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice (Farrar, 2009), author Phillip Hoose tracked down Colvin and asked her to tell the story of how she was shunned by classmates and regarded as an unfit role model, but nevertheless became a plaintiff in the landmark desegregation case, Browder v. Gayle.
It took a lot to finally get Claudette Colvin to talk. How did you persuade her to open up?
Well, it was very difficult to contact Claudette at all. It took about four years of effort. There was no phone number. There were very few articles that had been written about her over the years. She was completely swept under history’s rug, had it not been for a reporter from Birmingham. His name was Frank Sikora, who back in the 70s, I think, was assigned to cover some anniversary of the Montgomery bus boycott and remembered there had been someone before Rosa Parks. This was a long time ago and without that there would be nothing.
And then every year or two, someone would find her and do an interview. So there was a little bit of a record. I was really having a hard time. I wore out the New York City phone book. I’m pretty capable as a researcher and was getting nowhere. Then I found an article that had been written in USA Today in the early 90s and the reporter kept his byline on the piece. So, I called Richard Willing at USA Today, and I said would you consider calling her for me and telling her that I liked to write about her, a book. He relayed a message and she relayed a message back: maybe when I retire. And that went on for four years.
I had just about given up. Then one night in 2006, I came home from something and the message light was blinking on my phone and picked it up and there was (the reporter’s voice) and he said, “Claudette says you can call her. Here’s her number. Good luck.”
Wow, you really persevered.
I really wanted to do it, especially when I found out about the lawsuit Browder v. Gayle.
I thought this woman had made two enormous contributions to United States history and the fact that it could be swept under the rug, or the world wouldn’t know about it, really got to me. It really offended me. I had written so much about young people who really never got their due, really never got credit. Young people did all sorts of things. This country would be a lot different were it not for the contributions of young people. I just couldn’t think of a better example than Claudette Colvin’s story. I think the reason she was never really given her due, is really not acknowledged or thanked by that community is mainly that she was young. She was a teenager. I think that’s what she thinks too.
Has she told you what she thinks of the book?
She called me. The book had just arrived and she said, “I don’t have the words to express how I feel.” She was very happy with it. You’d have to ask her. I don’t want to put words in her mouth, but she likes the way it looks. She believes it to be accurate, and I think just that it happened. It’s one thing to talk about a book a couple of years ago and then another when it arrives.
What do you think the reaction to this book from kids will be?
I went to a school in Maine yesterday and told the story to a gymnasium full of kids for the first time, my trial run. And they were riveted. They never heard this before and that she was 15 years old was the clincher, the selling point. They asked me question after question about her.
I mean I know they hear the story of Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks every Martin Luther King Day and Black History Month, but the immediacy of it, what it would have felt like, how humiliating it was, how unfair it was every day, I think the emotional part of that is fading. I’m glad to restore it, to try to help. It’s a part of American history that really needs to be remembered.
