Claudette Colvin's Struggle For Civil Rights

Background
Claudette Colvin was a social justice leader who fought for civil rights. Colvin grew up with the Jim Crow laws, she grew up understanding that being black you had to be considered inferior to those who were white. Colvin never truly understood why people would sit quietly when their rights were being violated. Colvin was only 15-years-old, when she refused to give up her seat in the bus prior to Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat. Colvin protested through civil disobedience. After refusing to give up her seat in the bus she was arrested and charged with defying segregations laws. After she was released from jail, people assumed that she was crazy for trying to stand up for herself. Her parents were afraid that the KKK were
Colvin wanted to pursue legal actions since her constitutional right was being taken away, yet no one took her case seriously since she was so young. Lawyers believed that Colvin was too young to even understand all her rights and what she essential was legally fighting for. But eventually her act of defiance lead to others following in her footsteps. Colvin's greatest challenge she had to overcome was to show people that segregation was denudating and people of 'color' should stay quiet about it. In order for change to occur you must act upon your rights. Although people may not know Colvin for her refusal to give up her seat because people have seen her as someone who in young, reckless, and doesn't truly comprehend what her actions equate to; they are all wrong. She was able to standup for herself which adults were too afraid to do. Colvin ended up being one of the four plaintiffs in Browder v. Gayle, which lead to desegregation in the bus
The day I refused to give up my seat changed everything in my life. I had no friends because "their parents had told them to stay away from me because they said that I was crazy, I was an extremist" (Colvin, 2015). I don't understand what I did wrong? Was my act of civil disobedience really causing more harm than good? After my arrest, I told my parents I wanted to file a civil rights lawsuit, but people didn't think it was such a great idea. According to my lawyer, Fred Grey, people thought I lack "the age experience, the maturity, nor the training and civil rights activities, when we discussed it with other persons in the community, they felt that we should not do it at that time" (Colvin, 2015). Other's rumors circulated which was that my skin color was to dark. People also saw that I hadn't come from an elite family. At the age of 16, people found out that I became pregnant out of wedlock. "And I didn't fit the image either of a, you know, someone that they would want to show off" (Colvin, 2015). They decided that I wasn't fit to be the "face" of the movement to end bus system segregation. But nine months later- Rosa Parks did the same thing I did and this topic went all over the media. People began to notice the discrimination we faced. The bus boycott started that same December. Fred Grey could not wait to start a civil rights suit. Rosa Parks was a 42-year -old professional, "an officer in the