I consulted hundreds of Web sites, articles, and books in writing about Claudette. These titles were among the most helpful.
Branch, Taylor. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–63. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988.
Garrow, David J. Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. New York: Vintage Books, 1986.
Gray, Fred D. Bus Ride to Justice: Changing the System by the System. Montgomery, Ala.: Black Belt Press, 1995. In this autobiography, Claudette’s lawyer, Fred Gray, offers his account of using the law to “destroy everything segregated I could find.”
Halberstam, David. The Fifties. New York: Villard Books, 1993.
Hampton, Henry, and Steve Fayer. Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement. New York: Bantam Books, 1990. This book contains interviews with Montgomery residents who led or took part in the boycott.
Hare, Kenneth M., ed. They Walked to Freedom: The Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Champaign, Ill.: Spotlight Press L.L.C., 2005. This book was published by the Montgomery Advertiser to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Montgomery bus boycott. Profiles, photos, and news stories of the time are included.
King, Martin Luther, Jr. Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story. New York: Harper & Row, 1958. Dr. King’s account of the bus protest.
Levine, Ellen. Freedom’s Children: Young Civil Rights Activists Tell Their Own Stories. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1993. Ms. Levine interviewed Claudette as part of this excellent volume.
Newman, Richard, and Marcia Sawyer. Everybody Say Freedom: Everything You Need to Know about African-American History. New York: Penguin Books, 1996.
Robinson, Jo Ann Gibson. The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1987. This wonderful book is especially valuable in documenting the abuse that blacks experienced while simply getting from place to place during the bus boycott.
Sikora, Frank. The Judge: The Life and Opinions of Alabama’s Frank M. Johnson, Jr. Montgomery, Ala.: Black Belt Press, 1992. Sikora, a former reporter for The Birmingham News, has done a great deal to keep Claudette’s name from simply disappearing. He tracked her parents down during the 1970s and wrote the first newspaper story about her contributions to U.S. history. In The Judge, he recovered and published parts of the transcript of the Browder v. Gayle hearing, allowing us to hear Claudette’s actual words and filling in Judge Johnson’s impressions of her testimony. He provided the basis for my book’s Chapter 9.
Williams, Donnie, with Wayne Greenhaw. The Thunder of Angels: The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the People Who Broke the Back of Jim Crow. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2006. This book offers a very good portrait of a troubled Montgomery in the months after the bus boycott ended.
Williams, Juan. Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, 1954–1965. New York: Penguin Books, 1988.
Garrow, David J. “The Origins of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.” Southern Changes 7, no. 5 (1985): 21–27.
Johnson, Robert E. “Bombing, Harassment Don’t Stop Foot-Weary Negro Boycotters.” Jet, February 16, 1956, 8–13.
King, M. L., Jr. “Statement Delivered at the Prayer Pilgrimage Protesting the Electrocution of Jeremiah Reeves.” From the Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., vol. 4, January 1957–1958, April 6, 1958.
“Negroes Stop Riding Montgomery Buses in Protest over Jim Crow.” Jet, December 22, 1955, 12–15.
Thornton, J. Mills, III. “Challenge and Response in the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955–6.” Alabama Review 33 (July 1980): 163–235.
Willing, Richard. “Then Teens, They ‘Stood Up for Something.’ ” USA Today, November 28, 1995. A long, well-written front-page story about Claudette Colvin and Mary Louise Smith.
Younge, Gary. “She Would Not Be Moved.” The Guardian, December 16, 2000.
www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/ will take you to the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia. Here you can inspect an array of objects, signs, cartoons, and other materials related to racial segregation and civil rights.
www.riversofchange.org is the Internet address for a fine set of educational materials on Browder v. Gayle and the plaintiffs, including Claudette. The DVD, curriculum guide, and workbook emphasize rights that were recaptured by the landmark decision.
www.stanford.edu/group/King/ is the Web site for the Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute at Stanford University. Especially helpful to educators is the “Liberation Curriculum,” presenting a wide range of materials related to the African-American freedom struggle.