Claudette Colvin - The Spark That Wasn’t Quite Right

If it has to be explained to you that being black in America has been fairly shitty for pretty much all of our history, then buddy, you’re a bit of a fricking moron.  In the constant struggle of two steps forward and one step back, one courageous woman from Montgomery, Alabama was brave enough in the mid-1950's to say she wasn't going to take anymore bullshit.  That woman's name was Claudette Colvin.  What?  You thought I was going to say Rosa Parks?  You don't know who Claudette is?  Well buddy, better sit down, because history is always shittier than most books would have you believe.

Claudette was born and raised in Montgomery right in the heart of the segregated south.  Now, segregation was at the time a legally protected system theoretically based on the idea of “separate, but equal”, though in every case “equal” meant that blacks got everything whites did, just in a much shittier, both figuratively and literally, form.   When it came to the city bus system, everyone rode the same bus, because even racists prefer profits over ideology.  However, blacks had to sit in the back, and if a white person needed their seat they had to stand.  This was the world that Claudette grew up in, and this was the world that, at the age of sixteen, she decided she wouldn't put up with anymore.  In March of 1955, a full nine months before Rosa Parks, Claudette, on her way home from school, refused to give up her seat to a white woman.  Screaming that it was her constitutional right not to get up for anyone, Claudette was forced from the bus and arrested.

Now comes the part where things begin to get rather fucked up.  The NAACP had been looking for someone just like Claudette for several years.  You see, while most people like to imagine political activism as massive world changing protests, the real change tends to come from groups of well funded lawyers finding court cases to push up through the judicial system.  If this sounds tedious as hell, you’re right, it is, and one of the most important things in the process is that the right symbol is found.  Unfortunately for Claudette she did not fit this bill.  Claudette was from a poor family and was best described as mouthy, emotional, and feisty, as most teenagers are.  Unlike most teenagers, she was also pregnant with the bastard child of a married man.  However, these weren't the biggest knocks against her.  The biggest knock was that she was considered too black.  That's right, the NAACP wanted a black woman who would create more national sympathy, which is a real nice way of saying she had to look whiter.  Over the next nine months four more women were arrested for not giving up their seats, and all four were rejected by the NAACP for a myriad of reasons, which were largely cover for the fact that they were all too black.

By December of 1955, the NAACP was tired of waiting for a champion, so they made their own in the form of the secretary of the NAACP's Montgomery chapter, Rosa Parks.  Rosa was 42, from a middle class family, calm, well mannered, and most importantly, had relatively straighter hair and a lighter skin tone.  Rosa got on the bus, refused to give up her seat, the Montgomery Bus Boycott began, and as they say, the rest is history.  Except no, things continued to be just as fucked up.  The NAACP had its perfect public face, which they preserved by never letting Rosa speak in public.  It should probably be mentioned that most of the Civil Rights leaders of the time were rather sexist, this being the 1950's and all.  Unfortunately, Rosa's court case quickly got mired down in the local court system.  The bus boycott couldn't last forever, since after all, even in the pursuit of freedom people still needed to make money to feed their families, and Rosa's case looked like it wouldn't go anywhere for years.  So what did the NAACP do?  I'll tell you what.  They went back to all the women they had rejected, including Claudette, and started a civil case that skipped right to the federal level.  This case quickly worked its way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in December of 1956 that all buses had to be desegregated.  It was one of the first great victories of the Civil Rights Movement.

So that's it, right?  Happy ending?  Not really.  During and after the court case, Claudette and the other five women found themselves targeted for retribution via harassment, an inability to find work, and even death threats.  The NAACP, having gotten what it wanted, did little to help them.  Claudette was forced to move to New York in 1958 where she worked in a nursing home and had a second bastard child.  Claudette, as well as the other women who were all considered too black, disappeared into anonymity, their contribution almost entirely forgotten.

Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Claudette_Colvin.jpg

Fanny White - The Whore with A Lot of Gold

Fanny was not the kind of girl you imagined growing up to be a prostitute.  Raised on a small farm in upstate New York she received a fine education and was reported to be a bookish girl, which is a nice old timey way of calling her a nerd.  Unfortunately for Fanny, her probable life of milking cows and making babies until she died was derailed at age eighteen when she became the victim of a seducer.  In old fashioned times a seducer was a man who seduced "naive" young women with the promise of marriage in order to get into their pants.  Many a young woman, understandably a little anxious after years of sexual repression, jumped the gun a bit on the honeymoon portion, only to find their would be husbands running off to the hills.  Now to the modern day sophisticate, this may sound mildly unfortunate, but not world ending.  Unfortunately, in the Victorian era such abandoned women were considered ruined, like a bruised peach, and no respectable man or woman of the time wanted anything to do with a damaged peach.  In fact, this was such a problem that it later led to the development of engagement rings.  So, there you go ladies, not only is your ring probably mined by slave children, it also represents a time when women were thought of the same as a piece of fruit.  Way to hold onto that tradition.

With her reputation totally fucked, Fanny fled to live with her brother in New York City, where she got a shitty job cleaning hotel rooms.  However, her brother, probably worried that bruised peach syndrome was contagious or something, kicked her out a short time later.  With nowhere else to go she moved into a brothel and became a whore, where her societal status was more of an attribute than a detriment.  The mid-1800's was a particularly unpleasant time to be a prostitute, not that it really ever is, what with the rampant tuberculosis and syphilis.  On the plus side, most brothels were owned by women, which seems kind of like common sense since putting a man in charge of a brothel is like having your kids guard the jar of cookies; it just doesn't work.  Luckily for Fanny, she had a good head on her shoulders, unaffected by the ravages of syphilis, and within four years she owned the brothel where she worked.  Not content with her low standing she began to live the good life, taking a New York politician named Danny Sickles as her paramour.  A paramour was a man a prostitute considered herself to be in a relationship with.  She didn't charge him money, but he did give her a lot of really nice gifts, which makes it totally different.  Danny took her to all sorts of fancy dinners and parties, much to the chagrin of the other guests.

Fanny, what with her head for numbers, continued to grow her business, starting a high class brothel for rich merchants, politicians, and foreign dignitaries.  She also gave away freebies to the local police for reasons that can only be described as obvious.  The only run in with the law she had was when she was arrested for walking around dressed as a man, which apparently was worse than fucking strangers for money.  Fanny also funded one of Danny's re-election campaigns, which caused a big enough scandal that he married a fifteen year old girl (which totally makes sense).  Fanny, pissed as hell, beat him with a horsewhip in the lobby of a fancy hotel.  However, Danny got back into her good graces, and into the rest of her presumably, by taking her to England with him instead of his young bride.  In London, Fanny openly accompanied Danny to theaters, operas, and diplomatic events.  She even got Danny to present her to Queen Victoria, though under the assumed surname of one Danny's political rivals.  Danny's superiors, less than amused with all this, forced him to break up with Fanny soon after.  Brokenhearted, Fanny then went on a tour of Europe, visiting aristocratic resorts and sleeping with aristocrats, until she was forcefully removed from a Paris Opera for making a drunken scene.  She then returned to New York and opened a second brothel.

Upon returning home Fanny decided that she would try her hand at not being a whore anymore, so set her sights on finding a respectable husband.  After a few false starts she finally met her goal with a lawyer, seven years her junior, named Eddie Blankman.  For Eddie, Fanny might have been a whore, but by god, she was a rich whore.  Now miraculously respectable, Fanny proceeded to lavish the family that had abandoned her all those years ago with a multitude of gifts, even paying for her niece's schooling.  However, she refused to sign any of her property over to her new husband, because her life had made her no fool, though the fact that he tried to fuck her niece also probably had something to do with it.  Unfortunately for Fanny, her life as a respectable woman was not to last long.  She died at the age of 37 of internal bleeding.  Her family, convinced that her dick of a husband poisoned her, had her dug up and examined several times to try and find proof, but none was ever found.  It is estimated that Fanny was worth around $2 million in today's money at the time of her death.  After a lengthy legal battle that went clear to the state supreme court, Eddie inherited everything.

Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FannyWhite.jpg

Daniel Sickles - One Legged Cocksman

Danny, often called Devil Dan, was born to a well to do New York family that had just enough money for Danny to be a crazy as balls jack ass.  Danny got himself a good university education and then tried a couple of jobs over the years, including printer and lawyer, before deciding that working was for schmucks.  Like many people who don't want to work for a living, he ran for public office, getting himself elected to the New York legislature.  To celebrate, he attached himself to Fanny White, one of the highest of high class prostitutes in New York City at the time.  Their relationship lasted seven years.  Fanny did not consider Danny a customer, but rather her paramour, which for Danny worked out quite well considering it meant he did not have to pay her.  Danny returned the favor by openly parading her around town and taking her to all sorts of official government meetings and parties.  Being Victorian times, this caused a bit of a scandal, which was further exacerbated when it came to light that Fanny and her brothel money had funded his re-election campaign.  At the age of 33, and not wanting to get a real job, Danny solved the problem by marrying a 15 year old girl named Teresa Bagioli, a move he defended by stating that Teresa was sophisticated for her age and spoke five languages.  In case none of this creeps you out enough he had also known the girl since she was an infant.  Fanny, somewhat displeased with the match, publicly beat Danny with a horsewhip.

Shortly thereafter Danny was sent to work at the U.S. embassy in London.  Not one to let social norms influence him, left his new child bride in New York, though she was already pregnant, and instead took his prostitute Fanny.  He then proceeded to introduce her to Queen Victoria, using a political opponent’s last name as her alias.  Danny's bosses, less than amused, forced him to get rid of Fanny and send for his wife.  However, he ended up snubbing Queen Victoria at an Independence Day celebration and was sent home.  When Danny returned to New York he got himself elected to the state legislature again.  He and his wife then spent the next several years getting drunk at parties during which time Teresa began having an affair with Philip Barton Key, the son of the guy who wrote the Star Spangled Banner.  When Danny found out about the affair, he flew into a rage, shooting and killing his rival in broad daylight across the street from the White House.  He then calmly walked to the Attorney General's house and surrendered.  The trial was a total shit show, with Danny claiming temporary insanity, the first time such a defense was ever used.  The newspapers went wild over the story, calling Danny a hero for saving the women of America from Key's dick.  While in prison, Danny was given preferential treatment, including receiving numerous visitors and being allowed to pack a pistol.  He even got a personal letter from the president.  The icing on the cake was when he publicly forgave his wife.  Of course, he was found innocent.

When the Civil War broke out Danny used his political connections to get himself appointed a general.  However, he spent most of the early years of the war hanging out in Washington D.C., drinking beer, and sleeping with prostitutes.  Danny got along well with his superior officer, General Joe Hooker, a man who loved boozing and whoring so much that his surname became a term for prostitute.  Between the two of them they pretty much ran a brothel/bar in the command tent.  Unfortunately for Danny, Joe Hooker got canned for being a drunken whore monger, and was replaced by General George Meade, a man who considered reading the bible a heck of a good time.  They of course didn't get along and Danny did his best to ignore all of Meade's orders.  In the Battle of Gettysburg, Danny disobeyed orders and moved his troops forward into a vulnerable position.  In the ensuing battle the brigade was slaughtered and Danny lost a leg to a cannonball, which led to him being one of the first people to arrive back in Washington D.C. after the battle.  In D.C. Danny declared that Meade was a little bitch and that his own actions had led to victory for the Union.  He also donated his shattered leg to a museum, which he visited every year on the anniversary of losing it.

After the Civil War, Danny stayed in the army and oversaw Reconstruction in South Carolina, during which time his wife Teresa died of tuberculosis.  Danny was then made ambassador to Spain, an appointment he apparently assumed meant sleeping with half of the Spanish royal court, including the queen.  When Danny wasn't screwing the better looking half of the Spanish nobility, he kept himself busy by writing inaccurate and emotional letters to his superiors calling for war between the two countries.  Luckily these letters were largely ignored.  Growing bored with fucking a queen, Danny married her maid, Carmina Creagh, a woman twenty years his junior, and fathered two kids, all of whom he left in Spain when he returned to the U.S.  Back in the states, Danny got himself re-elected to public office and spent the rest of his life trying to convince people that he was a god damn war hero.  This included playing an important role in the efforts to preserve the Gettysburg battlefield.  Thirty-four years after the Battle of Gettysburg, he was finally awarded the Medal of Honor, the highest medal a soldier can be given, though it was probably just given to him to get him to shut the fuck up.  Danny died at the age of 94.  You can still see his leg today at the Army Medical Museum in Washington D.C.

Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Daniel_Edgar_Sickles.jpg