Hello Friends,

  My petition has pretty much stalled since I am not able to continually pour money into it in order to get views. It stalled at 584 views for several days until tonight, when a charitable human being decided to break the slump. 

I can’t ask you all to share that petition any more than you already have, so in order to take my mind off things, I created another petition and I hope you will consider signing it. Just look under my name and you will see a petition to ask President Biden to award Claudette Colvin the Presidential Medal of Freedom. At the tender age of 15, she courageously refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white woman AND she yelled that she had constitutional rights to the police officers who detained her. For 69 years, she lived in relative obscurity because of colorism and respectability politics. Even her youth was held against her. The civil rights leaders at the time didn’t want a defiant, "uncontrollable” teenager to be the public face of the civil rights movement, and her out-of-wedlock pregnancy only served to cement their decision.

 Claudette Colvin lost her firstborn son to a heart attack at only age 37. I believe that during his lifetime, he may have carried a burden of guilt knowing that he was the reason why his mother was not considered a morally acceptable choice to be a civil rights icon. She suffered for her activism, finding it hard to find and maintain employment. Her juvenile record was not expunged until she was 82 years old. This country needs to do right by Claudette Colvin, and I believe that awarding her the Presidential Medal of Freedom while she is still alive to appreciate it is a step is the way to go. There is no guarantee that she will get that honor after the 2024 election, so I am asking that she is given this award while Biden is still President.  He gave her attorney that medal almost two years ago; doesn’t she deserve it too? She was the reason why he was able to have a long and illustrious career in civil rights in the first place!

Thank you all for considering!  I included a photo of my little sweetheart for tax.