Before Rosa Parks, There Was Claudette Colvin

Sunday morning, I was half-listening to NPR while reading the newspaper when the lead to a segment titled “Before Rosa Parks, There Was Claudette Colvin” snagged my full attention. Having written about Claudette Colvin in my book Girls: A History of Growing Up Female, I abandoned the paper and turned up the volume on the radio. Do check it out–it’s a terrific segment with excerpts from an interview with Colvin, a 69-year-old retiree who lives in the Bronx. Phillip Hoose talks about his new biography Claudette Colvin for teenagers. (I’m going to discuss the book with my classes next week.) David Garrow, a historian of the Civil Rights movement, welcomes the visibility of Colvin’s role because “the real reality of the movement was often young people and often more than 50 percent women.” Here’s the link to the NPR piece: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101719889

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