Teacher Guide: The Women Who Fought and Why We Forgot

An Examination of Unified Textbook Narratives and Their Effects on Historical Fact

Case Study: The Women Activists of the Montgomery Bus Riots

1. Introduction

The purpose of this Teacher Guide is to examine the lives of three women who
were intimately involved in the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Further, this guide will take a
close look at the issue of erasure and the importance of narratives in textbooks. Studies
have shown that in British and American textbooks, females are consistently
outnumbered by males in their representation and those women represented only function
in a limited number of stereotypical roles (Gupta & Yin, 1990). The Montgomery Bus
Boycott will serve as a case study on the whiting out of women and minorities in
textbook narratives that they so rightly belong in. In this Teacher Guide I will examine
the lives of Rosa Parks, Claudette Colvin, and Jo Ann Robinson and their involvement in
the Montgomery Bus Boycott, specifically. Further, I will look at which parts of their
narratives made it into the history books, and why. After discussing these three women, I
will elaborate on the Textbook Problem, and why it is important to provide a counternarrative so that students get the complete story.

2. Brief Background of The Montgomery Bus Boycott & The Civil Rights Movement

Across America, whenever teachers of any grade level talk about the recent
history of the United States, inevitably they will talk about the Civil Rights Movement.
Though there have been many Civil Rights movements in America since its conception,
often times in the classroom when we discuss Civil Rights we are speaking specifically
about the African American Civil Rights Movement, which is commonly narrowed down
to be between the years of 1954 to 1968. For the purposes of this guide, we are going to
use the assumption of those years, though; some scholars believe that the African
American Civil Rights movement began as early as 1865, with the passing of the 13th
amendment (Wexler 1991). Operating under the assumption and narrative that the
modern day African-American Civil Rights Movement began in 1954, it only makes
sense that many historians and history textbooks alike attribute the catalytic moment for
the movement to be The Montgomery Bus Boycott (Wexler 76).
The Montgomery Bus Boycott began on December 5, 1955, just three days after
the fateful arrest of Rosa Parks (Wright, 1991). In the city of Montgomery, Alabama, the
bussing system was segregated. Black citizens were required to pay for their ticket in the
front of the bus and then exit the bus and walk around to the rear entrance. Once inside of
the bus, white citizens were privileged with the front seats, and blacks were confined to
the back. (Picture 1). Black citizens had to give up their seats whenever a white
passenger was left standing (Wexler 67). Tensions between white and black bus riders did
not begin with Parks, demonstrations of resistance had been happening for years. Black
citizens staged a boycott of bus systems in 1900 with the passing of the very first bus
segregation law and though they did not overturn the law, it was amended to be more
practical. However, some fifty years later, things were no better than before. On every

bus in Montgomery, there were ten seats reserved for only white passengers. With black
citizens being the majority of the bus riders on any given route on any given day, many
times they were made to stand by vacant white only seats (Theoharris 2013). This is the
climate in which Rosa Parks boarded the bus on December 1st, 1955. In her
autobiography, Parks recalls the day of the incident, which we will examine in more
detail later. She describes a white man entering the bus and the bus driver demanding that
she and a few other passengers move from the seats they were in and allow the man to sit
down. Inevitably, Parks was the only passenger who refused to move. She was later
arrested (Parks 1992). This was the spark that Jo Ann Robinson and E.D. Nixon had been
waiting for to rally people for the bus boycott.
The very next day Jo Ann Robinson went to work. She and a group of other
activist went about town passing out leaflets (Picture 2). Before the end of that first day
Every black man, woman, and child in Montgomery knew the plan and was passing the
word along, (Robinson, 1987). The boycott itself began three days later, on December
5th, 1955. Martin Luther King Jr. is elected president of the boycott committee of the
Montgomery Improvement Association. On the 8th, this committee attempted to bring an
agreement, with demands that included non-segregated seating, the hiring of black bus
drivers, and courteous behaviors toward black riders. The proposal was ultimately
rejected, so the committee came together to devise a complex carpooling system for
participants of the boycott. After the meeting, the segregationist group called the White
Citizens Council, which the city commissioner and the police chief both sat on, devised
an official Montgomery harassment plan, which will lead to the arrests, though short
lived, of Dr. King and many different black citizens on hyped-up charges (Wexler 77.)

Through the harassment, the protestors stayed strong. The Bus Boycott in Montgomery
sparked several across the country. (Picture 3) The backlash of the Boycott is why it is so
important to the history of the Civil Rights movement. As it started multiple non-violent
protests it also sparked a myriad of court cases aimed at bus de-segregation. Browder v.
Gayle was one such case, which called for the official declaration that bus segregation
was unconstitutional, among other demands. The filing of this lawsuit brought a huge
backlash of violence to the black community of Montgomery, Alabama. On June 5th, 1956
in a 2-1 vote, the Federal Court in Montgomery rules that bus segregation is
unconstitutional. The decision is appealed but on December 20th of 1956 a written order
from the Supreme Court arrives in Montgomery to end bus segregation. The next day the
citys buses are integrated and the boycott comes to an end after nearly thirteen months,
approximately 381 days (Wexler 78). The Montgomery Bus Boycott not only sparked
protest across the United States, but it also brought leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. to
the forefront, established important judicial precedent, and inspired a generation to keep
fighting.

3. Rosa Parks (Perspective 1)

Rosa Parks, (Picture 4) born Rosa McCauley, lived, what she herself would call,
a life history of being rebellious, (Theoharris 2013). Rosa was born on February 4,
1913 to parents that were accomplished and driven members of their community and it
was clear that they had transferred this motivation to Rosa. From her early years, Rosa
was a force to be reckoned with. In her biography, a childhood friend of Parks was quoted
saying, Nobody ever bossed Rosa around and got away with it, (Theoharris 2013). Her

biography includes a story of young Rosa who once threatened a young white boy with a
brick when he wouldnt leave her and her brother alone. When Rosa arrived back home,
her grandmother chastised her for standing up for herself, telling a young Rosa that she
would be lynched if she was not careful. However, Rosa replied that she would rather be
lynched than run over by [white people], (Theoharris 2013). This was not the first time
in her life that an adult told Rosa that her strong will would get her into trouble. Rosas
mother once told her acting happy would keep the white people from treating her poorly.
Rosa reported that this never sat well with her (Theoharris 2013).
In fact, it seems that one of the few people to ever teach Rosa it was right to stand
up to injustice was her grandfather. Sylvester Edwards reportedly stayed up at night on
the front porch with a rifle almost daring a Ku Klux Klan member to come to the
house. Rosa stated in the biography that she would often sit up with him, to see him kill
a Ku Kluxer, (Theoharris 2013). Parks describes a desolate schooling experience. In the
early 1900s, black schools in the South had to be completely built and heated by black
citizens; many schools lacked desks and worked off of a wood-burning furnace. The
wood for which, would be gather by students of the school. Rosa also described the
school year for black students being shorter than for white students, as black children had
to help their families to plow and plant in the spring and harvest in the fall, (Parks
1992). Though Rosa describes her childhood town of Pine Level as being too small for
the kind of segregation there was in larger cities, she reiterates that this did not free them
from fear. Rosa said there was always violence I hadnt done a lot of reading about
racism but I had done a lot of listening, (Parks 1992).

The early life of Rosa Parks created a sort of perfect storm for her to be involved
in politics and activism. Though she had been strong headed and courageous her whole
life, Rosa did not become officially involved in activism until she met and married her
husband Raymond Parks. Rosa describes a time in her autobiography that she and her
husband held a meeting in their house and there was an abundance of guns present. Parks
said she can remember sitting on the back porch with [her] feet on the top step and
putting [her] head between [her] knees, and [she] didnt move the whole meeting [she]
was very, very depressed about the fact that black men could not hold a meeting without
fear of bodily injury or death, (Parks 1992). From then on, Parks became intertwined
with the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP. The second meeting she attended, she was
the only woman and was asked to take notes, too shy in a new element to say no, Parks
complied and on the spot was voted in as the secretary of the Montgomery chapter of the
NAACP (Theoharris 2013). This is where she met E.D. Nixon, who, with Parks help,
became the president of the MNAACP, who worked closely with Parks throughout the
Civil Rights Era. Nixon and Parks worked on many projects for civil rights that are not
recognized as being part of the larger Civil Rights Movement. After the Scottsboro case,
in which six young black males were falsely accused of raping two white women,
membership and activism in the NAACP dropped dramatically, almost ninety percent.
Parks and Nixon were part of the movement that helped bring membership numbers back
up (Theoharris 2013). Parks participated in a campaign to increase black voter
registration. Due to certain information that black registers had to give, they faced direct
retribution from their employers, which lead to only thirty-one out several thousand black
residents of Montgomery, Alabama to be registered (Theoharris 2013). Rosa held

meetings of the Voters League in her apartment, organizing groups to go out and register
without asking a white person to vouch for them (Theoharris 2013.) Parks also worked
closely with Nixon to seek justice for black victims of white violence and expose the
legal lynchings of black people, (Theoharris 2103). Parks was sent 100 miles to
Abbeville, Alabama to assist in investigating the case of a young black woman who was
raped at gunpoint by six white men. The police of the town did nothing. Parks worked
tirelessly with the Committee for Equal Justice to draw attention to the case, eventually it
was picked up by the Pittsburgh Courier, though a negative backlash towards the case
made it clear that the only thing left to do was hide the young woman and her family
from potential violence by the police (Theoharris 2013). Parks was involved in several
more grassroots attempts to support various cases by the NAACP, at this time she also
began to gain respect in civil rights circles. Parks was involved in bringing awareness to
several more cases of violence against the black community, as well as pushing for an
anti-lynching law to be passed (Theoharris 2013).
On her journey of activism, Parks would meet many people that became
important figures both in her life and in the Civil Rights Movement, among these would
be Jo Ann Robinson and Claudette Colvin. Long before Rosa was arrested for sitting her
ground, Robinson had been working to start a boycott of the Montgomery bussing
system. Over sixty percent of the riders were black, however the bus only catered to its
white riders. Robinson met resistance each time she tried to start a boycott because many
of the residence of Montgomery had too far to go to work. The Montgomery chapter of
the NAACP was looking to sue the city over bus segregation, but they had to get it right,
they needed the perfect candidate. Claudette Colvin had almost been this at one time.

Rosa sat down to talk to Robinson and Colvin one day before the Boycott ever
began, speaking of such a candidate. I knew they needed a candidate who was beyond
reproach, said Rosa in her auto biography, but that is not why I refused to give up my
bus seat on Thursday, December 1, 1955, (Parks 1992). When that fateful day arrived
Rosa said the only thought going through her head was that she was tired of giving in,
(Parks 2013). When the driver told her that he would have her arrested she calmly looked
him in the eye and replied, You may do that. Rosa knew the risks. As she sat on the bus
she feared that she would be manhandled or beaten, (Parks 2013). When the policeman
finally came to get her, Rosa turned to one of the policemen and asked him why they
always pushed black people around. The officer replied, I dont know, and took her into
custody. Three days later, the Montgomery Bus Boycott began. When she first arrived at
the jail, she was put in an individual cell, until she was moved to a community cell with
two other women, one of which had tried to kill her lover with a hatchet after he hit her.
Parks did not participate in the planning of the actual boycott, though she became the
spokes person and symbol of it (Picture 5)(Theoharris 2013). This came at a price, which
many forget to discuss. Parks lost her job, which sent her family into severe debt. No one
in the NAACP offered her aid once she fell from the spotlight.

4. Jo Ann Robinson (Perspective 2)

Even in her own biography, information on the early life of Jo Ann Robinson
(Picture 6) is sparse. She was born on the 17th of April in 1912 in Culloden, Georgia. She
was the youngest of 12 children. When Jo Ann was still a child, her father died. The loss

devastated the family emotionally and financially, forcing them to sell their farm and
move to Macon, Georgia. However, Robinson adjusted well to her new life. She made
friends and went to school and seemed quite happy (Robison 1987). Robinson was very
committed to her schooling. She graduated as the valedictorian of her high school class.
She worked hard to get into Fort Valley State College where she earned her Bachelors
Degree. Still not satisfied, Robinson moved on to earn her Masters in English from
Atlanta State University. She taught in several schools. Bouncing from public schools to
the university system, until in 1949 she landed at Alabama State College; The year and
place that would forever change the course of her life (Robinson 1987).
Right before the Christmas holidays, Jo Ann Robinson was preparing herself for a
trip to Cleveland, Ohio to visit some family that she had up there. She had just moved to
Montgomery in the fall to begin her career at ASC. Earlier in the day, she had driven up
to the airport to check her bags for her afternoon flight. Later, she waited at the bus stop
to head to the airport. She had checked her bag, but she had quite a few packages of
presents for her family, and they loaded down her arms. When she entered the relatively
empty bus she quickly paid her fair and sat down. Unfortunately, she didnt sit in the right
place. Jo Ann had sat down in the fifth row, a row reserved for whites (Freedman 2006).
Jo Ann began to daydream of her vacation and her family, when angry yelling broke her
out of her reverie. The bus was stopped and the driver was very upset. Suddenly, the
driver left his seat and stood over me. His hand drawn back as if he would strike me. Get
up from there! he yelledI leaped to my feet, afraid he would hit me, and ran to the
front door to get off the bus, (Robinson 1987). Embarrassed and humiliated, Robinson

exited the bus crying, her holiday ruined. It was this moment, that inspired her to be an
agent of change.
Jo Ann had recently become a member of the Womens Political Council in 1949
and a year after that she was elected president of the council. Her first priority in office
was the boycott of the bus system. When she had brought up her experience to the
council, she learned that this was not an unusual occurrence on the Montgomery buses,
especially for women. Robinson organized meetings with city commissioners and bus
company officials, with very modest demands. She simply asked that they make better
seating arrangements (Freedman 2006). For her efforts, a few small concessions were
made. The buses now stopped at every corner of black neighborhoods, as they did in the
white neighborhoods, and drivers claimed they would be more courteous in the future,
but the seating remained unchanged.
In May of 1954, the Supreme Court ruled that school segregation was
unconstitutional (Freedman 2006). Here was Jo Anns chance! Many African Americans
began to think that if schools were not segregated, why should any other public facility
be? Jo Ann saw this as her opportunity to start the boycott she had been thinking about.
She preemptively made flyers on paper she borrowed from the university, flyers that only
needed a time and a date for a meeting to take place. When her supervisor found out what
she had done, she had to pay the money for the paper out of her own pocket (Robinson
1987). But she was ready. However, despite her tenacity, Robinson was at loss for just
how to get a boycott started, I didnt have the slightest idea how-without involving
others who might get hurt- to begin a boycott against the bus company, (Freedman

2006). That is when the WPC devised a plan that would harness Montgomerys black
communitys anger and rally them around the cause.
Robinson needed a catalyst. A few months later, Claudette Colvin was arrested.
Robinson described Colvin as an A student, quiet, well mannered, neat, clean,
intelligent, pretty and deeply religious, (Robinson 1987). Robinson had high hopes that
Claudette would be her catalyst. When E.D. Nixon was contacted by Claudettes family
for legal help, Jo Ann went with him to meet the girl that she thought could change
everything. Jo Ann helped get everything organized for Claudettes trial and was in
attendance the day that it happened. She was present in the courtroom to hear the
devastating news of Claudettes guilt and sentencing. Many African-Americans stopped
riding the bus then and there. The Womens Political Council discussed boycotting with
Claudette as the face of their campaign, but some members of the council were hesitant.
Robinson said that the members of the council, wanted to be certain the entire city was
behind them, and opinions differed where Claudette was concerned. Some felt she was
too young to be the trigger that precipitated the movement, (Hoose 2009).
Ultimately, the NAACP and WPC decided not to protest Claudettes conviction
via a bus boycott, though they did help raise money to appeal the ruling. When she was
re-convicted of attacking a police officer, Robinson moved on to try and find the trigger
for the boycott elsewhere. A few months later, it happened. Rosa Parks was arrested. the
news spread like wildfire into every black home, Robinson said (Robinson 1987). She
reports, however, that talking was the only thing that happened that first day. A numbing
helplessness seemed to paralyze everyone, (Robinson 1987). Rosa Parkss attorney, Fred

Gray, had a brief conversation with Robinson that night. At that point, she decided it was
time: the boycott would begin.
This time, Robinson did not bother asking permission; she told the other members
that it was time to distribute the flyers. The day the flyers were distributed, Jo Ann taught
her 8am class as regularly scheduled to avoid suspicion (Aretha 2009). She and two of
her students used routes that the WPC had planned months ago. By 2o clock
Practically ever black man, woman, and child in Montgomery knew the plan and was
passing the word along, (Robinson, 1987). Robinson spearheaded the entire boycott
while still teaching her classes at Alabama State. On December 5th, 1955, the first day of
the boycott, Robinson recalls their being press that indicated a presence of goon squads
in the black community, or black citizens who would harm other black citizens if they
attempted to ride the bus. There were no such squads to her knowledge (Robinson 1987).
Throughout the boycott, Robinson assumed a behind the scenes leadership position. She
organized help the committee that organized the demands made of the city council,
organized meeting and carpools to keep people updated and involved, created a treasury
and had fund raisers to finance the boycott, and, of course, attended the trial of Rosa
Parks (Robinson 1987). The road to the end of the boycott was not easy. Boycotters
reported being harassed by police. The White Citizen Council used multiple scare tactics
to attempt to put an end to the boycott early. All the while, Jo Ann kept boycotters
informed and stood her ground. Robinson herself participated either directly or indirectly
in many of the negotiations that took place between boycotters and the city
commissioner. She was present to see the successful end of the Boycott and the

desegregation of the Montgomery bus system, a dream she had nearly seven years prior
(Robinson 1987).

4. Claudette Colvin (Perspective 3)

Claudette Colvin (Picture 7) was born on September 5th of 1939. She was born
Claudette Austin, but later changed it when she moved in with her Aunt Mary Ann and
Uncle P.Q. Colvin, who she came to call, mom and dad, (Hoose 2009). Claudette grew
up in a crowded home with her parents, her younger sister Delphine, their dog Bell, two
horses and a coup full of chickens. Young Colvin was inquisitive and bright. Claudette
grew up questioning everything, she often asked her teacher many strange and outlandish
questions, but the biggest question of all she kept to herself; How did the white man
come to dominate [African-Americans?] (Hoose 2009). Claudette grew up in the South
during the Jim Crow era, it took her several years to realize how the white race came to
power, but she was born knowing that it was wrong. She had been a victim of racism her
entire life, however shed never taken it lying down. Once, when Colvin was out
shopping in stores with her mother, she wanted to try an Easter hat on. The white
saleswoman brought her other, plain-looking hats, but would not bring Claudette the hat
she wanted. When the saleswoman became frustrated and asked Claudette why she was
being so indignant, the young girl replied with a heated Because my ears dont stick out
like yours! (Hoose 2009). Her mother promptly escorted her from the store. Claudette
existed in a world of overt racism, from not being able to try on clothes in stores, to not
being able to sit in the chair in the dentists office, to segregation, and lynching, all

Claudette had ever known was racism and all Claudette had ever known was that is was
wrong. A very young Colvin once looked to her preacher and said, I dont want to serve
a God that would have a cursed race, (Hoose 2009). She recalls in her biography that her
preacher seemed proud of her for that.
Throughout Claudettes life, people, both white and black, told her that there was
something wrong with her and acted as if she should be ashamed of herself and who she
was. When Claudette began to attend school, she noticed that many of the girls began to
straighten their hair, and that all the boys would chase after girls who had fairer skin, this
left Claudette, who had very dark skin and very curly hair feeling alone and abandoned.
This feeling was only enunciated by the loss of her younger sister, Delphine, to Polio the
summer before she was entered high school, on Claudettes 13th birthday. Her sisters
death left her withdrawn from many of her peers but her distance allowed her to see a
bigger picture. Claudette began to see all of the girls emulating whites, in their clothing
and their actions, and their attitudes about themselves. We seemed to hate ourselves,
she recalled (Hoose 2009). Claudette was a sophomore when a student from her high
school, Jeremiah Reeves, was arrested and falsely accused of raping six women. Colvin
called this a turning point in her life and it would be the first contact that she ever had
with the NAACP. She became politically involved for the first time in her sort life; she
attended rallies, collected money from fundraisers for Jeremiahs lawyers, and much
more. Claudette became furious that she lived in a world where a black man could be put
in to custody for a crime with no questions asked, but black women were raped by white
men everyday without so much as a slap on the wrist (Hoose 2009). Jeremiahs first trial
resulted in the death sentence and sine he was a minor at the time, he was ordered to be

jailed until the legal age of twenty-one, his appeal rendered the same result. Claudette
said that she stayed mad about Jeremiah Reeves for a long time, (Hoose 2009). It
wasnt until she crossed paths with a new teacher that she was able to channel that anger.
Miss Nesbite was Claudettes English teacher. Claudette had always been serious
about her schooling, but she began to gain confidence under the guidance of her teacher
who taught the students to critically examine the world through literature. Miss Nesbite
had quite a bit of influence on how Claudette thought about things. When the county
began to speak of integration, many students began to gossip and whisper, but the only
thing on Claudettes mind was that if the school integrated, she would have access to
better textbooks. The textbooks in African-American schools left out so many things. The
Lincoln Douglas debate and information on the economic benefits of slavery were
intentionally left out of Claudettes textbooks (Hoose 2009). Miss Nesbite also
introduced Claudette to Harriet Tubman, who became her role model. Little by little, I
began to form a mission for myself. I was going to be life Harriet Tubman an go North to
liberate my people, (Hoose 2009). The stories that and experiences that Miss Nesbite
provided inspired Claudette to go to college and become a lawyer. Claudette was done
waiting for a hero. I was tired of hoping for justice. When my moment came, I was
ready, (Hoose 2009).
On March 2nd, 1955, Claudettes moment came. Claudette boarded the
Montgomery public transportation bus with a group of her classmates, paid her fair, and
went to sit in the colored, section, as she did every afternoon after school. However on
this particular day, class had gotten out a bit earlier due to a mandatory faculty meeting.
This meant that the bus was more crowded than it normally was when Claudette was

riding home. When a large group of white people boarded the bus one woman stood in
isle between Claudette and her friends seats. She looked expectant, as if Claudette
should give up her seat for her even though Claudette was sitting in the appropriate
section. Eventually, when it was brought to the drivers attention, he shouted back for
Claudette and he friends to move. All three of Claudettes friends rose, but Claudette did
not. The thoughts of her teacher, Miss Nesbites lesson were reeling in her head, and she
couldnt take it anymore. Why should I have to get up because the driver tells me to, or
just because Im black? The driver yelled again and still Claudette did not move (Hoose
2009). Exasperated by her indignant attitude, the driver pulled off at the nearest bus
station to have Claudette arrested. When the bus was stopped, a group of people entered
the bus, aware of the historical moment in the making. A transit officer entered the bus
and again ordered the young girl to get up and give her seat to the white woman.
Claudette thought back to the Negro Month unit that her class had just completed. She
remembered learning about the laws against black citizens. The bus segregation law
clearly stated that, unless there was another empty seat, Claudette was not legally
required to surrender her own. When the transit officer asked her again she said, in a soft
and strong voice, that she was not, because it was her constitutional right to sit there.
When the officer realized she would not budge, he informed the bus driver that he would
have to continue to drive the bus to the next stop, where a police officer could make an
official arrest. Though Claudette was terrified, she did not move (Hoose 2009).
At the next stop, two officers stormed into the bus. The first asked the driver to
identify who was causing the trouble and upon seeing Claudette said Ive dealt with that
thing before, and came back to confront her (Hoose 2009). (Picture 8) The officers

yelled at Claudette and she stood strong, only yelling back that it was her constitutional
right to stay seated exactly where she was. She clarifies in her biography that she never
said anything profanejust [her] rights, (Hoose 2009). From there, Claudette was
forcibly removed from the bus, the two officers dragged her down the isle and out of the
vehicle. Claudette did not fight back, just acted as dead weight. When she was
handcuffed and put into the car, the officers ridiculed her the entire way to the police
station, calling her a whore, a thing, and trying to guess her bra size. When she
arrived at the police station she was booked and incarcerated in the adult prison, without
a phone call. She was fifteen at the time. Luckily, her parents had heard from her
classmates about what had happened and they came to pick her up. She was driven home
by here preacher, who told her something she would never forget drove her home, he
turned around to look at her and said, Everyone prays for freedom. Weve all been
praying and praying. But youre different-you want an answer the next morning. And I
think you just brought the revolution to Montgomery, (Hoose 2009).
The news of Claudette Colvins heroism spread quickly thought out the town. Jo
Ann Robinson said In a few hours, every Negro youngster on the streets discussed
Colvins arrest. Telephones rang. Clubs called special meeting and discussed the event
with some degree of alarm. Mothers expressed concern about permitting their children on
the buses, (Robinson). Jo Ann Robinson and E. D. Nixon took a special interest in
Colvin, as they had been trying to sue the Montgomery bus company for years and had
been searching for the right plaintiff. E.D. Nixon agreed to help Claudette find
representation for her upcoming trial. Nixon bring Rosa Parks with him when he comes

to meet Claudette and urges forty-two year old Rosa to get Claudette involved with the
NAACP and get her on board for a boycott (Hoose 2009).
Claudettes trial took place on March 18th, 1955. It was something similar to show
trial. The two police officers falsely testified that Claudette had attacked them during the
arrest. A white eyewitness even wrote in an affidavit that the officers had used soft
tones to question Claudette (Hoose 2009). Claudette was convicted of all three charges
for which she was being prosecuted for; violating segregation laws, disturbing the peace,
and attacking an officer. She sobbed in the courtroom. Her appeal went no better: two
charges were removed, but the judge still convicted her of attacking a police officer. This
was practically a death sentence. With the charge hanging over her head, Colvin would
not be accepted into college, would not be able to keep a job, and would essentially have
a target painted on her back for the rest of her life. When, she returned to school, the
same students that had hailed her as a hero mocked her, she felt alone and isolated. Even
when she began to attend NAACP meeting with Rosa Parks she felt like she wan an
outside. All of the younger kids had educated parents who were sending them to college
in the north one day (Hoose 2009). The staggering loss of Colvins appeal sent E.D.
Nixon and Jo Ann Robinson away to search for anew catalyst for their boycott and
Colvin lost touch with everyone who had once supported her. Alone and devastated,
Colvin sought comfort in anyone who would listen. One such young man, who remained
unnamed in her biography, was a married man who understood Colvins frustration in her
situation. The two spent much time together in the last few moths of her school year and
one day after he had retreated back to his family, Claudette realized she was pregnant.
She was kicked out of school and returned home to live with her birth parents.

About the time that Claudette was kicked out of school, Rosa Parks was arrested
for doing exactly what Colvin had done moths before. The only difference was that her
arrested finally sparked the movement that the NAACP and particularly Jo Ann Robinson
had been trying to start. When the NAACP did sue Montgomery, they asked if Colvin
would be one of the plaintiffs in the case. She agreed whole-heartedly (Hoose 2009). On
May 11th, 1956 the lawsuit Browder v. Gayle was filed. Claudette gave a very powerful
testimony that brought many in the courtroom to tears. Charles Langford, an attendant at
the trial, reportedly said, if there was a start witness in the boycott case, it had to be
Claudette Colvin, (Hoose 88). After the verdict, a 2-1 vote to abolish the segregation law
in Alabama, it seemed that Claudette was left behind completely. She felt as if people ha
forgotten she has ever took a stand at all. She was informed about the verdict on the news
channel, her lawyer did not even call her.
Claudette did what she could to be involved in the movement and stay informed,
but as a young mother, it was hard. She had a family to support and it seemed as if the
only people who remembered who she was were perspective employers. Each time
Claudette went into a new place of employment, it seemed like she had a clock counting
down the days until someone recognized her. Sometimes, it was someone from her won
community, who congratulated her and hugged her. Other times, however, it was her
white boss who promptly fired her (Hoose 2009). No one else seemed to recognize her
and as Rosas popularity grew, Claudette faded more and more into the background and
with the legendary case Brown v. Board of Education in Topeka, she felt her name had
been forgotten completely. She changed her name to Claudette Austin and moved to New
York with her two sons some years later.

It was not until the 1970s that someone contacted her about her heroism some
years later. A man trying to write an article and said he knew there was another girl,
(Hoose 2009). Years later, in 2005, Claudette got a call she never expected. The
administration Booker T. Washington Magnet School asked if she would come and speak
to the students. She agreed. That day, as she stepped into the spotlight for the first time in
50 years, she couldnt believe what she saw. Black and white students sat side by side.
When two young girls, one white and one black, came up to take a picture on either side
of her after her speech she was still astonished saying, This would have never happened
when I was your age, (Hoose 2009). At the end of her speech, students were invited to
participate in a question and answer session. One student asked Claudette if she had any
advice for them. She looked longingly out into the crowd, smiled softly and said, Dont
give up, (Hoose 2009).

5. Women & The Textbook Problem (Perspective 4)

In recent years, education professionals and historians alike have began to become
critical of the literature that we are providing for our students in schools today. Revisiting
childhood textbooks will result in realizing a myriad of problems ranging from historical
anomalies and fallacies, to erasure of minorities and a generally westernized, white, male
dominated narrative. Herbert Butterfeild once said, I do not know if there is any other
field of knowledge which suffers so badly as history from the sheer blind repetitions that
occur year after year, and from book to book. (Picture 9). This perfectly articulates the
situation so many schools have found themselves in with their textbooks. As an example,
in 2010, the Texas Board of Education began voting on changes they would make to the

history textbook currently in use in many of its classrooms. Some of the material that was
voted in conflicted with what historians consider to be fact. For example, in an article by
Michael Burnham, which appeared in the Washington Post notes one such change. Also
contentious were changes that asserted Christian faith of the founding fathers. Historians
say the founding fathers had a variety of approaches to religion and faith; some, like
Jefferson, were quite secular (Burnham, 2010). On erasure of women and minorities,
Gerda Lerner, past president of the Organization of American Historians said, The
striking fact about the historiography of women is the general neglect of the subject by
historians, (Lerner 1979). This is not untrue for minorities either when research
indicates that black people were almost completely excluded in historical accounts of the
period from reconstruction to post- World War II, a period of time that covers about 200
to 300 pages in many textbooks, (Wolf 1992). So realizing that racial minorities and
women both struggle to be represented authentically in American History textbooks, it
seems logical that being a non-white women would make it that much harder to be
included into history.
Through out this Teacher Guide, many facts have been uncovered that were either
misrepresented or completely erased. Claudette Colvin was removed from history books
almost totally because of her age and the fact that she later became a mother. Jo Ann
Robinson faded into the background because of her position behind the scenes. Finally,
Rosa Parks was painted as tired elderly woman, when in fact she was purposefully
standing up for her own rights. The tragic thing about the Textbook Problem, is that its
still happening. In a textbook published in 2003, the section on Rosa Parks includes only
quotes from Martin Luther King Jr. and none from Parks herself (Prentice Hall). This

happens across historical subjects. It is our jobs as teachers to see to it that the past is not
erased or re-written to privilege any one narrative.

6. Conclusion

The question is: how do teachers go about doing this? The simplest way to deepen
students knowledge and fight the traditional, one-sided narrative is through what is
called an alternative text, (Loewen 2010). When reading through a textbook, select
other outside texts that deal with the same topic and see if it is approached the same. For
this teacher guide, I looked at what the textbooks had to say against autobiographies and
eyewitness accounts and what came about was a very different story indeed. Other ways
of teaching the real story include providing students with their own primary sources and
having them critically analyze the facts for themselves, thusly presenting a more
representative ethos is that of multiple narratives, which highlight the pluralistic nature of
American history and society, (Jornell 2011). Teaching what really happened is
important, not just in the case of the Women of the of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, but
in every subject across history.

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