“I“In life, there is a beginning and an end,” John Carlos, the African-American runner who raised his fist in a Black Power salute from the podium at the 1968 Olympics, once told me. The end doesn’t matter. All that matters is what you do in between – whether you’re willing to do what it takes to make change happen. Physical and material sacrifices are necessary. When all the dust settles and we get ready to play the ninth inning, the greatest reward is knowing that you did your job while you were here on this planet.
Claudette Colvin, who died earlier this week in a Texas nursing home, did her work while she was here on this planet, although it would be decades before her physical and material sacrifices were recognized. On March 2, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, when Colvin was just 15 years old, she took a stand and refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white woman.
The driver called the police, who kicked her several times, and then, when she stayed put, took her to city hall and charged her. Fred Gray, her attorney, believed she would make a strong test case for ending segregation in the city. But the levels of hierarchy in the Deep South did not stop at black and white. The male-dominated church leadership viewed Colvin as a liability—not only was she young, rebellious, and outspoken, she was dark-skinned and poor in a world where shade mattered. “The black leadership in Montgomery at that time thought we had to wait,” Gray said.
Nine months later, Rosa Parks suffered a similar fate after she too refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white passenger. Local leaders thought she was the ideal candidate: “I probably would have vetted a dozen more before I got there if Rosa Parks hadn’t come,” said local leader Ed Nixon.
In the period between the two arrests, Colvin became pregnant and remained in the margins of history for several decades. When I interviewed her at her home in the Bronx 45 years later, she was working as a nurse’s aide in a Manhattan nursing home, mostly unheard of and hardly celebrated.
“[There is] The Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano once told me: “It is a system of power that always decides in the name of humanity who deserves to be remembered and who deserves to be forgotten.” “We are so much more than we are told. We are so much more beautiful.” Eventually, in her 60s, Colvin’s story broke through that system. Her obituary appeared this week, among other places, in New York Times, BBC, The Washington Post, the world And even Telegraph.
There are many lessons we can learn from Colvin’s life and courageous actions, but for now I want to focus on just four that seem urgent and relevant. The first is that popular history is made by ordinary people who, like Colvin, do extraordinary things – but it is often written as if it were the work of saints in a crude morality play. This is not only untrue; It degrades everyone involved, including the saints. In the case of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Parks was portrayed as a seamstress who happened to be in the wrong place at the right time. “She was a victim of the forces of history and the forces of fate,” said Martin Luther King, who, as a young preacher in the city, was chosen to lead the fight. It was the gardens No one is a victim. She was a militant feminist and anti-racist activist, and had a good personal relationship with Dr. King, but Its hero was Malcolm X. “I had an almost life-long history of rebelling against mistreatment of my color,” she said.
Second, the fact that inequality along lines of race, class, gender and shadow means that some people are more likely to be honored in history and promoted in politics does not detract one iota from the courage or prominence of their actions.
Last September, Silverio Villegas Gonzalez was shot and killed in Chicago by a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, who claimed he feared for his life. Villegas Gonzalez was an illegal immigrant and there is no video that contradicts ICE’s account. Rene Judd, who was shot and killed in Minneapolis last week by an ICE agent while peacefully protesting against an ICE raid, has been memorialized around the world. The fact that Judd was a white American citizen of course plays a role in why she is remembered in a way that Villegas Gonzalez and many others are not. The challenge here is not to diminish her sacrifice and courage, but also to name Villegas Gonzalez as we should call Colvin. Colvin resented the fact that her protest left her vulnerable and she should have received more support. But she understood why they supported Parks and not her. “They chose the right person,” she told me. “They needed someone to hold all the lines together. They weren’t going to follow me.”
Third, Montgomery’s story is ultimately not about Colvin or Parks, just as the immigration rights story is not ultimately about Judd or Villegas Gonzalez. The struggle against apartheid requires organization Mostly by women -And thousands are working together to create change. Only after the black community boycotted the buses for 13 months did the local institution in Montgomery finally relent. The individual may resist, however resistance It is collective.
Finally, that resistance never stops. The very rights Colvin fought for have been undone today. The main elements of civil rights and Voting rights The protection is reversed. Last week Donald Trump said He believed that civil rights led to the rise of “white people.” [being] Very bad treatment.”
When Colvin was asked if she would help promote the opening of the Rosa Parks Museum on the grounds that it might lead to its closure, she declined. “What conclusion can I have?” She asked me. “There is no closure. This does not belong in the museum, because this struggle is not over yet. We still do not have everything we should have. And on a personal level, there can be no closure. They took my life away. If they want closure, they should give that to my grandchildren.”