Claudette Colvin, Rosa Parks, We Thank You Both Equally Poem by Mark Heathcote

Refusing to give up her seat to a white woman
soon to become a civil rights activist, Claudette Colvin
was first arrested at the tender age of 15.
in Montgomery, Alabama, for simply sitting
on a crowded, segregated bus Claudette Colvin
she crossed swords with the state on a-number-of-issues.
It leaves me blue with a dry mouth
that there ever was a Montgomery bus boycott.

It makes my guts twist and knot thinking how it took
the United States Supreme Court to make a decision
to declare segregated buses were unconstitutional
civil rights activist Claudette Colvin
was first arrested at the tender age of 15.
It didn't take her long to know right from wrong.

Claudette, we're all still so proud of you
you stood for something more,
you stood with sister Rosa Parks too,
She is now honoured as 'the first lady of civil rights'
and 'the mother of the freedom movement.'
that crushed all segregated seating on buses.

Claudette Colvin, Rosa Parks, we thank you both equally
from our hearts for being so upright and so bold.
As Parks wrote in her autobiography, there is always
more work to be done in the struggle for justice.
So it's upon me and you and all other peoples
that the Claudette Colvin's and Rosa Parks
of this mixed-up world of hell
never stand segregated and alone again.

Let's all buy a bus ticket that says all aboard
there is no difference between you and me
let's buy a bus ticket that says I love you
therefore you must love me too.

Let's not cross swords and feel scorned
let us all follow in their courageous actions
and be forever transformed
that's all I've got left to say till the end of my days.