- my iParenting
- quick clicks
- preschoolers today articles
- preschoolers today q&a
- children today articles
- children today q&a
- community & groups
- research baby names
- prepare a birth plan
- content channels
- ip channel rss feeds
- read birth stories
- read parenting stories
- recommended books
- e-newsletters
- safety recalls
- ip diaries
- ip store
- mom of the month
- dad of the month
- editor's letter
- letters to the editor
From Our Sponsors
- e-newsletters
- Sign up to receive our free weekly e-newsletters
- award-winning products
The iParenting Media Awards program helps parents find the best products for their families.
The Forgotten Teens
Black History Isn't Just for Adults By Tamekia Reece
By now your teen's probably grumbling about his "black history" report that's due in a few days. Don't tell him to suck it up and just get it done. Try turning it into a little inspirational learning for him. Instead of letting him do the same old Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King, Jr. report that over half his class will turn in, suggest he up the ante by doing a report on a teen who played an important role during the civil rights movement. He's bound to shock his teacher, get a good grade and may even be inspired to create a little history himself.
For instance, we all know the story of Rosa Parks and how her refusal to move to the back of the bus for a white passenger sparked the famous bus boycott that ended bus segregation. However, what most people don't know is that Rosa Parks wasn't the first to take that stance. A 15-year-old teen was! On March 2, 1955, Claudette Colvin, a girl from Montgomery, Ala., boarded the bus on her way home from school and got comfortable in the middle section of the bus. When she was told to move to the back to allow white passengers to have the middle seat, she refused and was handcuffed and dragged off the bus by police.
Though the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and other activists were waiting for an incident like that so they could use it to challenge segregated seating on buses, the fact that Colvin was a pregnant and unwed teen caused them to decide to wait for another test case. That case came nine months later, when Rosa Parks, then 42 years old, took the same actions Colvin had and was consequentially arrested as well. Now Parks gets all the recognition and is written throughout history books as a heroine, while Claudette Colvin, the teen who started it all, is practically forgotten.