She was too young (she was fifteen), perceived to be too fiesty and too emotional, and too working class to be an appropriate figurehead to inspire revolution among her fellow African American residents of Montgomery, Alabama. She was not considered by African American civil rights leaders to be a suitable symbol for the campaign against segregationist legislation. Claudette Colvin had done the same nine months before. Rosa Parks was not the first woman to refuse to give up her seat on a bus for a white person. Phillip's love of the game is reflected in his acclaimed books, Perfect Once Removed: When Baseball Was All the World to Me which was named one of the Top 10 Sports Books of 2007 by Booklist and Hoosiers: the Fabulous Basketball Life of Indiana.Ī graduate of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Sciences, Hoose has been a staff member of The Nature Conservancy since 1977, dedicated to finding and protecting habitats of endangered species.Ī songwriter and performing musician, Phillip Hoose is a founding member of the Children's Music Network and a member of the band Chipped Enamel. Teaching Tolerance Magazine called it, 'A masterpiece for teaching values and character education.' The book is beloved around the world with over one million copies in print in ten different languages.

The picture book, Hey, Little Ant which began as a song by the same title was co-authored with his daughter Hannah. History, and the Christopher Award-winning manual for youth activism It's Our World Too!. He is also the author of the multi-award winning title, The Race to Save the Lord God Bird, the National Book Award Finalist We Were There Too!: Young People in U.S. Phillip Hoose is the widely-acclaimed author of books, essays, stories, songs, and articles, including the National Book Award winning book, Claudette Colvin: Twice Towards Justice. Gayle, the landmark case that struck down the segregation laws of Montgomery and swept away the legal underpinnings of the Jim Crow South.īased on extensive interviews with Claudette Colvin and many others, Phillip Hoose presents the first in-depth account of an important yet largely unknown civil rights figure, skillfully weaving her dramatic story into the fabric of the historic Montgomery bus boycott and court case that would change the course of American history. Undaunted, a year later she dared to challenge segregation again as a key plaintiff in Browder v. Instead of being celebrated as Rosa Parks would be just nine months later, fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin found herself shunned by her classmates and dismissed by community leaders. On March 2, 1955, an impassioned teenager, fed up with the daily injustices of Jim Crow segregation, refused to give her seat to a white woman on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. You have to take a stand and say, ‘This is not right.’” – Claudette Colvin “When it comes to justice, there is no easy way to get it.

Claudette Colvin by Phillip Hoose