History always tends to leave out influential women, especially it comes to the little that is learned in school systems. There is, of course, the cannon few of Harriet Tubman, Susan B Anthony and so on. The issue is no one speaks of any others, and some others are not even known to the world. So, I want t to discuss two important women, both from different times, but both teen girls and patriots. Sybil Ludington a girl of sixteen during the revolution, and Claudette Colvin during the civil rights movement, have important unknown stories that need to be shared this month.
Sybil Ludington lived in the midst of America’s fight for freedom against Britain. In 1777, the night of Paul Revere’s magical ride, there were many others who followed suit. None of which are known to history. But an important one was just a girl a sixteen-year-old girl. Sybil was the eldest of 12 children, her father Henry was a farmer, a mill owner, and was n the military for over sixty years. On April, 26 Colonel Henry Ludington received word a nearby town was under attack. The issue was his men had disbanded for the planting season. The rider was too tired to go on, so Sybil rose to the occasion. It is not known if it was voluntary, or her father requested it, but no matter what she did not slack. Sybil rode 20 to 40 miles through a wicked storm to gather troops for her father. She rallied 100’s of soldiers to get to her father’s’ side, and because the battle was lost, I think people try to ignore it. Especially considering a little girl did such a brave thing. In comparison to Paul Revere, her ride was not full of political messes and such, but it was a ride worth remembering nonetheless. It is important to realize that women are worth more than just sitting sewing and praying for husbands to walk in from war.
178 years later, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin walked onto a bus. During the civil rights movement, African Americans fought tooth and nail for equality. People were trying the law, and in March in 1955, Claudette did just that. Nine months before Rosa Parks did anything Colvin set her rear end in the front of the bus. There were no seats left and the bus driver wanted her to give up her seat for a young white woman. Claudette was actually interviewed about this and she said, “He wanted me to give up my seat for a white person and I would have done it for an elderly person but this was a young white woman. Three of the students had got up reluctantly and I remained sitting next to the window,”. She showed immense bravery in this act. She said she couldn’t give up her seat and she shouldn’t have to she paid her fare, and this started a string of events, the bus driver alerted police who grabbed her and knocked her books over imperiously questing her actions. And because of this she was handcuffed and herded to jail like an animal. After this, her family lived in fear of the KKK, but astonishingly she was very good friends with Rosa Parks who did the exact thing she did nine months later. Rosa actually got the idea from Claudette and was made the papers, and Rosa made the actions of Claudette more popular and began a new movement.
Knowing girls are forgotten and left out of history is always infuriating, especially when they are talented young women who did exactly what a man did, or inevitably began a movement.