Who is Claudette Colvin? Kanye Rosa Parks plant claim explored amid rapper's Clubhouse ban

Kanye West was recently banned from Clubhouse after sharing another anti-Semitic and racially inappropriate rant on the social media platform. The rapper hosted a private, 50-minute Q&A session with Wack100 and charged $20 to access the interview.

During the discussion, Kanye called American Civil Rights activist Rosa Parks a “plant,” or an individual who placed herself in a particular position during the incident that led to the Montgomery bus boycott. He said:

“All of these heroes man– it’s only one. That’s Jesus Christ. You’re gonna find out something about MLK, something about JFK, something about Malcolm, Rosa Parks. We know Rosa Parks was a plant.”

Kanye added that outrage and trauma are forms of economy and further blamed the Jews:

“We know all of these things and they use these media outlets to outrage. Outrage is an economy, the trauma economy. What death are we gonna promote this week? It ain’t like 14 people are getting killed every week in Chicago. But no, we’re going to publicize this on our– I’m not gonna say whose platform it is. It was the Jews.”

Shortly after, Kanye West’s conversation was abruptly cut off by Clubhouse, and he was also banned from the platform. The social media site issued a statement surrounding the ban to Billboard and said:

“We took action to shut down a conversation on Saturday because it violated our policies. We also suspended those who violated the policies. There’s absolutely no place for bullying, hate speech or abuse on our platform as explicitly stated in our Community Guidelines and Terms of Service.”

Rosa Parks was a well-known civil rights activist and the face of resistance against racial segregation who played a key role in the Montgomery bus boycott that stemmed from the activist refusing to vacate her seat in favor of a Caucasian passenger.

The United States Congress also honored her as “the first lady of civil rights” and “the mother of the freedom movement.”

However, Kanye’s comments sparked a renewed debate about Claudette Colvin being the first individual to be arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a Caucasian woman on a segregated bus the same year as that of Rosa Parks.

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Everything to know about Claudette Colvin as Kanye's "plant" remark goes viral

Claudette Colvin, 83, is a retired nurse's aide who is considered a pioneer of the 1950s civil rights movement. She was arrested at the age of 15 in Montgomery after she refused to give her seat to a Caucasian woman on a segregated bus in March 1955.

She was born on September 5, 1939, to C. P. Austin and Mary Jane Gadson in Montgomery. She and her younger sister Delphine were taken in by their great aunt and uncle, Mary Anne and Q. P. Colvin, after her father abandoned the family and the mother failed to provide financial support to the children.

Colvin grew up in the King Hill neighborhood and started attending Booker T. Washington High School in 1952. She was also a member of the NAACP Youth Council and formed a close relationship with her mentor, Rosa Parks.

Nearly nine months before Parks made headlines for rejecting bus driver James F. Blake's order to give up seats in the “colored” section of a segregated bus for a Caucasian passenger after the “White” section was filled, Colvin was arrested for similar reasons in another identical public vehicle.

The latter was asked to vacate her place after a Caucasian woman refused to sit in an open seat in the aisle across from her. When Colvin refused to vacate her seat, the driver reportedly informed the police, who arrested the teenager after dragging her off the bus.

Colvin reportedly screamed that it was her constitutional right not to vacate the seat during the arrest. The teen was initially charged with disturbing the peace, violating segregation laws, as well as battering and assaulting a police officer.

The girl’s classmate, Larkins Price, said that there was no assault involved in the process. A juvenile judge later labeled Colvin a delinquent and sentenced her to probation. Her arrest record and adjudication for delinquency was expunged in 2021, 66 years after she was wrongfully charged.

Although Rosa Parks became the face of the protest following her famous refusal, Claudette Colvin was one of the three plaintiffs in the Browder v. Gayle case regarding Montgomery and Alabama state bus segregation laws.

For several years, Colvin’s role and efforts in the civil rights movement stemming from the Montgomery bus segregation did not receive enough recognition. Moreover, her case was allegedly dropped by civil rights campaigners as she was unmarried and pregnant during the proceedings.

Speaking about the situation, Colvin told NPR in 2015:

“Well, today, I’m-75-years old. It’s good to see some of the fruit of my labor. To me, I don’t mind being named, as long as we have someone out there to tell our story.”

The verdict of Browder v. Gayle was announced in November 1956 and ruled that bus segregation is unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Colvin reportedly moved to New York City from Montgomery in 1958 and began working as a nurse's aide in a Manhattan nursing home in 1969.

She worked for 35 years and retired in 2004. Her eldest son Raymond died of cardiac arrest in 1993, and her youngest son Randy currently lives in Atlanta. Claudette Colvin is a grandmother to four of Randy’s children.

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Twitter reacts to Kanye West’s comments on Rosa Parks

Kanye's comments sparked an online debate about Rosa Parks and Claudette Colvin (Image via Getty Images)

Kanye West has continued to come under fire for his consistent anti-Semitic remarks and his public support for Hitler and the Nazis. The rapper was banned from Instagram and Twitter for his anti-Semitic behavior and dropped by brands like Adidas and Balenciaga, among others.

More recently, he was also banned from Clubhouse after making anti-Semitic remarks during a Q&A with Wack100. Kanye’s comments about Rosa Parks being a “plant” also sparked a debate on social media.

Some users took to Twitter to call out Kanye West for his comments.

Meanwhile, others pointed out that people should remember Claudette Colvin before slamming Kanye over his comments on Rosa Parks.

While reactions about Kanye West’s comments continue to pour in online, reports suggest that the Parks’ Montgomery bus incident was not planned or predetermined but happened in a similar way to that of Colvin’s case.

The NAACP reportedly felt that, as a 40-year-old civil rights activist and member of the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP, Rosa Parks was an appropriate candidate to win the civil disobedience case against the Montgomery bus laws as compared to Colvin, who was still a high school student at the time.