M2 - Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice

When Claudette was four years old she learned that she should never touch a white person from an instance where…

• She accidently bumped into a white woman and her young son waiting in line at the general store

• Some white children in a store put their hands against hers as they giggled and pointed

• Her mother was slapped by a woman at a store for questioning the price of an item

• She saw her sister get slapped for retaliating against a white boy who was teasing her at the store

If a black person boarded a bus and there were white people sitting in the white section, they had to…

• Exit the bus and re-enter from the rear door

• Silently walk to the back of the bus without making eye-contact with the white passengers

• Wait until a segregated bus arrived without any white passengers

• Stand, regardless of whether there were empty seats or not

Claudette and her sisters were mostly raised by…

• Their mother and father

• Their mother

• Their grandmother and grandfather

• Their great-aunt and uncle

True or False: Claudette was an excellent student who was able to skip a grade in school.

• True

• False

Which of the following made Claudette feel especially degraded about shopping in the white department stores downtown?

• They weren’t allowed to try on any of the clothes they bought

• Certain areas of the store, with the nicest items, were off limits for African Americans

• Blacks could only shop at the stores late at night after all the white costumers had left

• Clerks often charged African American customers more for the same items as whites

What did Claudette say to the police when they attempted to remove her from the bus?

• “It’s my constitutional right!”

• "Get your hands off me!"

• “We shall overcome! We shall overcome!”

• She said nothing except that she started praying to herself

How were Rosa Parks and Claudette Colvin’s arrests different?

• Rosa refused to give her seat up for a white man instead of a white woman

• The police were polite to Rosa compared to how they dragged Claudette off the bus

• Rosa and the bus driver had a history of conflict where Claudette didn’t really know the driver

• The bus driver was allowed to make the arrest of Rosa, where Claudette’s driver had to wait for the police to arrive

Which were reasons that Rosa Parks was considered to be the “right face” of the boycott instead of Claudette Colvin? (select all that apply)

• She was older and considered to be more reliable than a teenager, like Claudette

• She was among the most committed Christians in Martin Luther King Jr’s parish on Dexter St

• She was known to be a calm, polite, and respectable woman who wouldn’t be likely to pick a fight

• She had a reputation for being a charismatic public speaker that could get people to take action based on her rousing speeches

When the school found out that Claudette was pregnant, what did they do?

• They sent her to a maternity house out in the country to give birth in secret

• They arranged for Miss Nesbitt to adopt the child since she and her husband were unable to conceive a child

• They expelled her from the school immediately after she started showing

• They took her out of the college prep classes and enrolled her “home-economics” classes

What impact did the bus boycott have on the City Lines bus company? (select all that apply)

• They had to let go some of the drivers

• They allow for three extra rows of blacks-only seats

• The stopped running buses on weekends

• They shut down some of the bus routes