Mrs Josie Smith Lawrence. Ms. Claudette Colvin. Mrs Rosa Parks

Published 5.24.2022 for Episcopal Divinity School at Union/Church of the Heavenly Rest Pilgrimage to Atlanta/Selma/Montgomery May 22-25

“Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” African Proverb

Aurelia S. BROWDER, and Susie McDonald, and Claudette Colvin, by Q. P. Colvin, next friend, and Mary Louise Smith, by Frank Smith, next friend, and others similarly situated, Plaintiffs,
v.
W. A. GAYLE, Clyde Sellers and Frank Parks, individually and as members of the Board of Commissioners of the City of Montgomery, Alabama, and Goodwyn J. Ruppenthal, individually and as Chief of Police of the City of Montgomery, Alabama, and The Montgomery City Lines, Inc., a Corporation, and James F. Blake, and Robert Cleere, and C. C. (Jack) Owen, Jimmy Hitchcock, and Sibyl Pool, as members of the Alabama Public Service Commission, Defendants.

“Colvin says learning about African-American history in school inspired her act. ‘I could not move, because history had me glued to the seat,’ she recalls telling the bus driver and the police officer who came to arrest her. ‘

It felt like Sojourner Truth’s hands were pushing me down on one shoulder and Harriet Tubman’s hands were pushing me down on another shoulder.’
https://www.democracynow.org/2013/3/29/the_other_rosa_parks_now_7

“It’s my constitutional right to sit here as much as that lady. I paid my fare, it’s my constitutional right.” https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/claudette-colvin/ See ponderings 498 re documentary w/this title. Available on Peacock
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Lettie Ross, claire milligan, avis smith, elaine smith, cous gwen patton (RIP) Claudette ColvinBoycott 50th AnniversaryJackson Community House & Museum Montgomery, Al. December 2005

Claudette told us that the afternoon the bus driver told her to move, her class had just been studying about the constitution and our rights.

She said that her teacher at Booker T Washington school was Mrs Josie Smith Lawrence. AUNTIE!!


Girls’ basketball team at either the Alabama State Laboratory High School or Alabama State College for Negroes in Montgomery, Alabama. Coach Josie Lawrence stands to the left. https://www.umbrasearch.org/catalog/6d28ea497bffd36ab120da29473ae7de7873de74
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AUNTIE. MRS JOSE SMITH LAWRENCE and my Cous Boopie (Saralyn Smith Pace)

Auntie passed away October 31, 2001. “Her memory will be cherished by her children: Bertha Welch, Georgia Shepherd, Morris Smith, Marvin Smith, Wilbum Smith, Saralyn Pace, Katie Jo Milliken and William Edward Smith; 19 grandchildren, and 15 great-grandchildren.” And many others of us — like me!

i can absolutely hear Auntie’s inspiring Claudette and her classmates. As i continue to be inspired by Mrs Parks!!

this one of my favorite pictures in TheUniverse! my mantra to tourists and pilgrims. “Please 4GET THE BUS! SistshRosa IS sooo much more❗️”

Ukuthula/UBUNTU

wed nov 16 2022 REmbr…G is, as G can only BE. GOOD

If I didn’t define myself, I’d be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive. audre lorde

ashe