Free Claudette Colvin by Phillip Hoose Page B

police department.Besides, my mother was convinced God wouldn’t forgive you for an abortion. My dad threatened to kill the father—he was so much older than I was. Then my dad got worried that the father’s wife’s family was going to accuse me of breaking up their marriage and come after us. My parents insisted that I not tell anyone who the father was. I wanted to tell, to explain what had happened to me so that people would understand, but I gave in and kept quiet.
    My mom just took over my life at that point. Usually I was stronger, but right then I was easy to control. Of course I couldn’t marry the father; I didn’t love him and he was already married. My boyfriend, Fred Harvey, came to our house and asked to marry me, but my mother said he would just be doing it out of pity. I wanted to say yes, but I backed down.
    We decided I’d keep my pregnancy a secret as long as I could so I wouldn’t get kicked out of school. The rule at Booker T. Washington was “If you’re pregnant, you’re out.” Then, when Christmas break came, I would tell the school I was sick and go to Birmingham and live with my birth mother and have the baby there. After that I would leave the baby with her for a while and come back to Montgomery and finish high school. I would only have one semester left.
    But I started showing too early. Late in the fall a few girls caught on. They’d say, “I thought you had more sense.” I didn’t have any answer to
that
. The teachers always had an eye out for pregnant girls—it was very common. They knew the signs. So one day I got called down to the office. I went in to see the principal, Mr. Smiley. I said, “I know why I’m here; you don’t have to bother saying it,” but he did anyway. And he added, “Don’t come back after Christmas break.”
    So we had to change strategies. Our new plan was for me to have the baby in Birmingham and finish school there. I had never officially changed my last name on my birth certificate to Colvin—it still said I was Claudette Austin. So I could enroll as Claudette Austin and finish high school in Birmingham.
    One day a few weeks before Christmas, I was at home, trying to get ready in my mind for all the changes to come—changes in my body, becoming a mother, not going to Booker T. Washington, moving away from my Montgomery family—when a neighbor girl walked over from across the street carrying a piece of paper. She handed it to me and said, “You gotta read this.” The three of us—her, me, and Mom—stood out inthe front yard reading it. It was the boycott leaflet: “Don’t ride the bus on Monday.” Right away I saw my name—misspelled: “Claudette Colbert.” My first thought was, If they had just called me, I could have at least reminded them how to spell my name.
    But it didn’t say who the Negro woman was who got arrested. When I heard on the news that it was Rosa Parks, I had several feelings: I was glad an adult had finally stood up to the system, but I felt left out. I was thinking, Hey, I did that months ago and everybody dropped me. There was a time when I thought I would be the centerpiece of the bus case. I was eager to keep going in court. I had wanted them to keep appealing my case. I had enough self-confidence to keep going. Maybe adults thought a teenager’s testimony wouldn’t hold up in the legal system. But what I did know is they all turned their backs on me, especially after I got pregnant. It really, really hurt. But on the other hand, having been with Rosa at the NAACP meetings, I thought, Well, maybe she’s the right person—she’s strong and adults won’t listen to me anyway. One thing was for sure: no matter how I felt or what I thought, I wasn’t going to get my chance.

    D R . M ARTIN L UTHER K ING , J R ., rose early the morning of Monday, December 5, rushed to his