Claudette Colvin, the 15-year-old whose 1955 arrest for refusing to yield her bus seat helped ignite the Montgomery Bus Boycott, has died at 86.
At a Glance
- Colvin was arrested nine months before Rosa Parks for the same protest
- She became a lead plaintiff in the lawsuit that ended bus segregation
- Her record was expunged in 2021 after she petitioned the court
- Why it matters: Her quiet act of defiance rewrote civil-rights law yet stayed overlooked for decades
The Claudette Colvin Legacy Foundation announced her death Tuesday, saying she died of natural causes in Texas, according to Ashley D. Roseboro of the organization.
The Day She Refused to Move
On March 2, 1955, Colvin boarded a Montgomery bus after school. White passengers filled the front section, so the driver ordered Black riders to surrender their seats. Colvin stayed put.
“My mindset was on freedom,” she recalled in 2021. “So I was not going to move that day. I told them that history had me glued to the seat.”
Police arrested the teenager, charging her with violating segregation law.
Overlooked Catalyst of the Boycott
Colvin’s arrest came nine months before Rosa Parks’ similar protest on December 1, 1955. Parks’ case sparked the 381-day Montgomery Bus Boycott and launched Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. into national prominence.
Yet Colvin’s role did not end on the bus. She joined three other women as plaintiffs in Browder v. Gayle, the federal lawsuit that resulted in the Supreme Court outlawing bus segregation in 1956.
Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed said her action “helped lay the legal and moral foundation for the movement that would change America,” adding that her bravery “was too often overlooked.”
“Claudette Colvin’s life reminds us that movements are built not only by those whose names are most familiar, but by those whose courage comes early, quietly, and at great personal cost,” Reed said.
Clearing Her Record
In 2021, Colvin petitioned an Alabama court to expunge her arrest. A judge granted the request.
“When I think about why I’m seeking to have my name cleared by the state, it is because I believe if that happened it would show the generation growing up now that progress is possible, and things do get better,” she said at the time. “It will inspire them to make the world better.”
Her death comes just weeks after Montgomery marked the 70th anniversary of the Bus Boycott.
Legacy Beyond the Headlines
While Parks became an international icon, Colvin spent decades in relative obscurity. Civil-rights historians note that Parks, a local NAACP activist, was chosen as the face of the boycott partly because she was an adult with an unblemished reputation, whereas Colvin was a teenager who later moved north.
Still, her early resistance helped galvanize Montgomery’s Black community. Fellow teenager Mary Louise Smith was also arrested in October 1955 for refusing to give up her seat, adding to the mounting frustration that fueled the boycott.
Key Takeaways
- Claudette Colvin’s refusal to move predated Rosa Parks’ by nine months
- Her court case legally ended bus segregation, yet her name stayed in the shadows
- The city expunged her record in 2021, fulfilling her wish to inspire younger activists
- Mayor Reed says her legacy challenges Americans to honor every voice in the fight for justice
