Want to start a Revolution?: radical women in the black freedom struggle

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Want To Start A Revolution?: Radical Women In The Black Freedom Struggle
Racial discrimination is an act which has caused many suffering to the people of color, and especially those living in the United States. In the earlier days, segregation of blacks was constitutionally accepted, in fact, black people could get arrested for not obeying the law if they were found going against the set rules which encouraged discrimination of the blacks. In this article, I am going to compare and contrast the actions of two racial discrimination activists; Rosa Parks being the first one and the second one Claudette Colvin.
Rosa Parks and Claudette Colvin were women who belonged to National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). These two ladies were both found guilty of the violation of the segregation laws of the Montgomery bus. They chose to use non-violent tactics in their fight for the rights of the blacks by refusing to up their bus seats to the white passengers who were on board. The action of these two women caused the drivers of the Montgomery bus to call the police officers so that they could be arrested and for the violation of the segregation laws. Both Rosa Parks and Claudette were tired of the racism activity which was being practiced by the drivers of Montgomery bus, and they were just not just going to let such actions continue being practiced. As we can see, most of the blacks were afraid of these laws which saw them alienated from the whites; they had to use the back door while boarding this bus, and they had to preserve the front seats for the whites.

The actions of Claude and Rosa refusing to give up their seats to the white passengers happened in 1954 and 1955 respectively, which was a very crucial period since it during this time; many black people were being mishandled by the whites. Rosa Parks and Claude were both tired of the mistreatments which were done on the African-Americans in Montgomery, Alabama where racism was highly practiced by then. However, this did not discourage these two ladies from doing what they had to do.
The difference in these two women’s activism act was that; Claude Colvin’s act failed to stir up the black leadership of Montgomery to start a mass protest; however, Rosa Parks Act became successful since she managed to lead all the black in the boycott of the Montgomery bus. As from this action, the supreme court of the US stated that it was illegal for public buses to practice racism activities on their passengers. Parks acted as a dispatcher together with King and over eighty other people, where she coordinated protests to fight for the rights of the black people. Parks was the leader of NAACP while Colvin was not; additionally, Parks insisted that the decision of the Supreme Court be implemented where she managed to reduce the racism acts that were being done on the blacks by the city buses.
The act of these two ladies i.e. Parks and Colvin who refused to give their seats to white passengers of the Montgomery bus was an act of courage. Black people were alienated from the whites and were treated in a very inferior way; they were only given an opportunity of boarding the Montgomery bus through the back door so that they could not compete with the whites who used the main door. The blacks were also only given an opportunity to seat on the last four rows in this bus where the rest of the seats were reserved for the blacks. Furthermore, if the whites were more than the number of their reserved seats, they the blacks had to give up their seats for these extra white passengers. The kind of discrimination which was practiced by these city buses is very unacceptable thanks to the actions of these two activists who fought to stop it.