After the Roll Call: Grief, Unexpected Anxiety, and the Work Ahead

“Over the past several weeks, I have been carrying the poignant weight of communal grief. The season began with the passing of Claudette Colvin, the forerunner to Rosa Parks, whose story has too often been marginalized by the historical conditioning that allowed space for only one “acceptable” Negro woman at a time. On March 2, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin refused to surrender her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus nine months before the Montgomery Bus Boycott began.

Mother Colvin passed on January 13, 2026, and was laid to rest on January 24. Unlike Mother Rosa Parks, she did not lie in state at the Capitol. While people gathered from across the country to honor her life, presidents did not attend her service. Yet…”