The “Claudette” sections come from a series of fourteen interviews I conducted with Claudette Colvin between January 1 and September 13, 2007. Three of these interviews took place in person in New York City, the others by telephone. Almost all lasted more than an hour, and those in New York extended through much of the day. We also had many shorter conversations, when I would call her to clarify something or ask another question or two. Finally, Claudette let me read aloud the text of the entire book to her, sometimes stopping me to make corrections or to change the emphasis of a particular account.
Fred Gray also granted me four interviews, one at his office in Tuskegee, Alabama, and three by phone. None was as lengthy as the average interview with Claudette, but he generously answered all the questions I asked. Information from Alean Bowser, Annie Larkin Price, and Frank Sikora also derives from personal interviews.
The notes here refer to sources of quoted material. Unless otherwise noted, references are to books and articles cited in the bibliography.
4 “The only professional jobs”: Hampton and Fayer, Voices of Freedom, 18–19.
7 City ordinance since 1906: Garrow, “Origins,” 22.
8 “The ten empty seats became”: Robinson, Montgomery Bus Boycott, 35.
8 “There were no Negro drivers”: King, Stride Toward Freedom, 40–41.
8 Stories about mistreatment of black bus riders: Robinson, Montgomery Bus Boycott, 7–9, 21–22; King, Stride Toward Freedom, 147–48.
15 Description of King Hill: Claudette’s memories are supplemented by my own visit to the neighborhood on April 13, 2007. It had changed very little from Claudette’s girlhood. Neighbors were still close and knew one another well. The family who live in Claudette’s old house invited me in to look around. They had heard her story and were proud to be living in the house in which Claudette Colvin had grown up.
19 St. Jude Hospital in Montgomery (sidebar): From the National Park Service’s “We Shall Overcome: Historic Places of the Civil Rights Movement,” http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/travel/civilrights/al5.htm.
23 Tragedy struck once again: Jeremiah Reeves’s arrest was not widely reported in local newspapers. The Alabama Journal, June 1, 1955, reports that the ongoing (second) trial was for “criminally assaulting a nineteen-year-old Cleveland Avenue housewife.” An article in the Montgomery Advertiser, March 24, 1958, says Reeves was arrested in November 1952 for “raping a white woman.”
23 “One of the authorities”: King, Stride Toward Freedom, 31.
25 One Girl’s Memory (sidebar): Author interview, March 27, 2007. The person quoted, a classmate of Claudette’s, asked that she not be identified by name. The memory of Jeremiah Reeves never left this woman, or Claudette, or many other blacks who lived in Montgomery in those years. At 12:13 a.m. on March 28, 1958, Reeves was executed in the electric chair at Montgomery’s Kilby State Prison. At the age of twenty-two, he had spent nearly six years on death row. Nine days after his death, on Easter Sunday, Martin Luther King, Jr., addressed two thousand people on the steps of the Alabama State Capitol. “The issue before us now,” he said, “is not the innocence or guilt of Jeremiah Reeves. Even if he were guilty, it is the severity and inequality of the penalty that constitutes the injustice. Full grown white men committing comparable crimes against Negro girls are rarely if ever punished, and are never given the death penalty or even a life sentence . . . Easter is a day of hope . . . It is a day that says to us that the forces of evil and injustice cannot survive . . . We must live and face death if necessary with that hope.” From The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., vol. IV: Symbol of the Movement, January 1957–December 1958. “Statement Delivered at the Prayer Pilgrimage Protesting the Electrocution of Jeremiah Reeves,” 6 April 1958. http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/publications/papers/vol4
/580406-001-Statement_at_the_Prayer_Pilgrimage.htm.
Reeves’s ordeal had a chilling effect on at least one black Montgomery boy. Fred Taylor was fourteen when Montgomery’s buses were integrated. He later remembered, “I would sit [in the front of the bus] beside a white man, but I consciously did not sit by a white woman. I [could] remember a boy, Jeremiah Reeves, who got electrocuted for allegedly raping a white woman.” Levine, Freedom’s Children, 30.
27 “We conclude, unanimously” (Brown v. Board sidebar): Williams, Eyes on the Prize, 34–35.
37 “The wonderful thing”: Younge, “She Would Not Be Moved.”
37 “[With]in a few hours”: Robinson, Montgomery Bus Boycott, 39.
38 “I felt like a dog”: Robinson, Montgomery Bus Boycott, 15–17.
38 Robinson’s victory with white merchants: Halberstam, The Fifties, 546.
39 “In Montgomery in 1955”: Robinson, Montgomery Bus Boycott, 23.
41 “Both men were quite pleasant”: King, Stride Toward Freedom, 41.
41 “hopeful”: King, Stride Toward Freedom, 41.
41 “[We] were given to understand”: Robinson, Montgomery Bus Boycott, 41.
42 Fred Gray’s boyhood and law school education: Gray, Bus Ride to Justice, 3–15.
43 Fred Gray’s visit to the Colvin family: Claudette’s recollection; author interview with Fred Gray, Tuskegee, Alabama, April 11, 2007.
44 Citizens Coordinating Committee leaflet: Garrow, “Origins,” 24.
44 Students remained in the hall: Author interview with Annie Larkin Price, Montgomery, Alabama, April 11, 2007. Ms. Price (then Annie Larkin) attended the March 18, 1955, hearing with several schoolmates.
44 “She insisted she was colored”: Halberstam, The Fifties, 546.
45 “Claudette’s agonized sobs”: Robinson, Montgomery Bus Boycott, 42.
47 “The verdict was a bombshell”: Robinson, Montgomery Bus Boycott, 42.
47 “The question of boycotting”: Robinson, Montgomery Bus Boycott, 39.
48 Gossip about Claudette: Younge, “She Would Not Be Moved”; Willing, “Then Teens”; Branch, Parting the Waters, 123.
48 “I had to be sure”: Williams, Eyes on the Prize, 63.
49 Church fund-raising for Claudette’s lawsuit: King Papers, Stanford University. NAACP Notes: 550322-000.pdf.
49 “I just can’t explain”: King Papers, Stanford University, Letter from Virginia Durr to Curtis McDougall, in Vol. 6/550411-000.
49 May 6, 1955, appeal: Garrow, “Origins,” 24; Branch, Parting the Waters, 123; Gray, Bus Ride to Justice, 49.
51 “From the time Claudette got arrested”: Author interview with Alean Bowser, by telephone, March 27, 2007.
53 Mary Louise Smith’s arrest: Willing, “Then Teens.”
54 Gossip about Mary Louise Smith’s family: Willing, “Then Teens”; Branch, Parting the Waters, 127.
55 “The inaction of the city”: King, Stride Toward Freedom, 42.
57 “Another Negro woman has”: Robinson, Montgomery Bus Boycott, 45.
62 MLK’s Boyhood Bus Experience (sidebar): Garrow, Bearing the Cross, 35.
62 “Just last Thursday”: Branch, Parting the Waters, 139.
62 “And we are determined”: Branch, Parting the Waters, 141.
65 “He had poetry in his voice”: Williams and Greenhaw, Thunder of Angels, 85.
66 MIA network: Garrow, Bearing the Cross, 27.
66 “Well, if you think” (sidebar): Garrow, Bearing the Cross, 22.
66 “I’d go home” (sidebar): Author interview with Annie Larkin Price, by telephone, February 19, 2007.
67 “Jump in, grandmother”: King, Stride Toward Freedom, 78.
67 “When they first sent the leaflets”: Author interview with Alean Bowser, by telephone, March 27, 2007.
69 Juliette Morgan story (sidebar): Robinson, Montgomery Bus Boycott, 102–3.
71 “If I am stopped”: King, Stride Toward Freedom, 138.
71 In 1900 . . . forty years later (sidebar): Newman and Sawyer, Everybody Say Freedom, 252.
71 Fred Gray’s strategy: Gray, Bus Ride to Justice, 68–70, and author interview with Fred Gray, Tuskegee, Alabama, April 11, 2007.
72 Gray’s plaintiff selection: Author interview with Fred Gray, Tuskegee, Alabama, April 11, 2007; telephone conversations, July 17 and August 20, 2007.
77 “All the boycotts”: Sikora, The Judge, 229.
80 “while they’re juggling that hot potato”: Johnson, “Bombing, Harassment Don’t Stop,” 11.
80 “That N——who’s running the bus boycott”: Johnson, “Bombing, Harassment Don’t Stop,” 8.
82 “Are you looking for me?”: Branch, Parting the Waters, 176.
82 “You could read a happiness”: Williams and Greenhaw, Thunder of Angels, 212.
82 The description of the courtroom in which Browder v. Gayle was heard comes from two sources: Frank Sikora’s The Judge, 17–18, and my own visit. I showed up at the federal courthouse in Montgomery, now named after Judge Johnson, on April 10, 2007. Two uniformed guards informed me that I would not be able to visit the courtroom unless I had official business, but one guard agreed to telephone a clerk who worked for Judge Edward Carnes, now in charge of Judge Johnson’s courtroom, to see if he would allow me to visit. To everyone’s surprise, he agreed. Soon the clerk and I were standing in a beautifully paneled courtroom, bathed in sunlight pouring in from high, vaulted windows. I gazed up at a ceiling inlaid with bright Spanish tiles. It was a Southern courthouse reminiscent of the one in To Kill a Mockingbird, and in mint condition. I was permitted to make sketches of the room but not to take photos. The clerk kindly answered my many questions about the typical movements of plaintiffs, defendants, judges, audience members, and other court officials.
83 The description of the hearing, Browder v. Gayle, comes almost entirely from Frank Sikora’s book The Judge, about the life and principal cases of Judge Frank M. Johnson. As the sidebar on page 83 shows, Judge Johnson’s decisions during the civil rights years had a huge impact on the South. The first major case presented in The Judge is Browder v. Gayle. Sikora interviewed Judge Johnson at length about the case, including the judge’s memories and impressions of Claudette Colvin’s testimony. When I write, for example, that Claudette “widened” her eyes in talking to City Attorney Knabe, that memory or impression comes from Judge Johnson, as told to Frank Sikora (who was not in the courtroom that day). Sikora also unearthed the transcript of the hearing—the court clerk’s written record of exactly what everyone said—to help prompt Judge Johnson’s memory of events that had taken place several decades before their conversation. All who realize the great importance of Browder v. Gayle—the first major federal court verdict to go beyond schools in ruling that racial segregation in public facilities was unconstitutional—owe a debt of gratitude to Frank Sikora.
91 “Judge, as far as I’m concerned”: Sikora, The Judge, 35–37.
92 “If I had been in your shoes”: Sikora, The Judge, 41.
92 “We hold that the statutes” (sidebar): Sikora, The Judge, 38–39.
95 “My heart began to throb”: King, Stride Toward Freedom, 160.
95 “we will continue to walk”: Branch, Parting the Waters, 194.
95 “I guess we’ll have to abide”: Sikora, The Judge, 43.
95 “I rode the bus” (sidebar): Author interview with Annie Larkin Price, by telephone, February 19, 2007.
95 “Darling,” she explained, “the bus boycott” (sidebar): Levine, Freedom’s Children, 31.
95 “I was cooking”: Hampton and Fayer, Voices of Freedom, 32.
96 “I believe you are”: King, Stride Toward Freedom, 173
96 “It is interesting”: Sikora, The Judge, 44.
97 “Your house is gonna be blowed”: Sikora, The Judge, 46.
98 “We had gotten there”: Author interview with Annie Larkin Price, Montgomery, Alabama, April 13, 2007.
98 “The issue now has passed”: Montgomery Advertiser, editorial, January 14, 1956.
103 “I was met at the door”: Author interview with Frank Sikora, by telephone, August 2007.
