Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice: Chapters 9–10

by Phillip Hoose
Courageous and determined, teenager Claudette Colvin refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus and became a plaintiff in a landmark civil rights case. This nonfiction account celebrates an often unacknowledged American heroine.

Here are links to our lists for the book: Chapters 1–4, Chapters 5–8, Chapters 9–10
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. discrimination
    unfair treatment of a person or group based on prejudice
    All the boycotts and sit-ins and marches in themselves did not cure the illness of discrimination.
  2. dismantle
    take off or remove
    This amendment was used in several important cases during the civil rights era to dismantle legal segregation, including Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.
  3. ratified
    formally approved and invested with legal authority
    Ratified in 1868 to secure freedom for slaves, the Fourteenth Amendment said in section one...
  4. abridge
    lessen, diminish, or curtail
    No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
  5. deprive
    keep from having, keeping, or obtaining
    No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
  6. indict
    accuse formally of a crime
    One hundred boycott leaders were indicted on conspiracy charges.
  7. conspiracy
    a secret agreement to perform an unlawful act
    One hundred boycott leaders were indicted on conspiracy charges.
  8. obscure
    difficult to find
    On February 21, a grand jury had indicted — formally accused of a crime — 100 blacks for violating an obscure 1921 law banning boycotts “without just or legal cause.”
  9. intimidated
    made scared or fearful as by threats
    She had seen a lot of life and wasn’t easily intimidated.
  10. adjourn
    close at the end of a session
    The hearing was adjourned in late afternoon.
  11. abolish
    do away with
    By a 2-1 decision a federal court abolished segregated seating on Montgomery’s — and Alabama’s — buses.
  12. statute
    an act passed by a legislative body
    We hold that the statutes and ordinances requiring segregation of the white and colored races on the motor buses of a common carrier of passengers in the city of Montgomery and its police jurisdictions . . . [violate] the due process and equal protection of the law . . . under the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.
  13. harass
    annoy continually or chronically
    Police harassed boycotters as they waited at pickup stations for their MIA cars, ordering them to move on, threatening to charge them with loitering or hitchhiking — both crimes.
  14. bailiff
    officer of the court employed to execute writs and processes
    At one minute after 9:00, the bailiff bustled into the courtroom hollering, “All rise,” followed close behind by three white men draped in black robes.
  15. bewitch
    cast a spell over someone or something
    Knabe tried to trap her into saying Dr. King had bewitched them all.
Created on Sat Sep 14 00:41:12 EDT 2013 (updated Thu Jun 26 11:53:45 EDT 2025)

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