Civil Rights Pioneer Claudette Colvin Dies at 86, Remembered for Historic 1955 Bus Protest

Claudette Colvin, a civil rights pioneer, died at 86. At just 15, she refused to give up her seat to a white woman on a segregated bus in Montgomery in 1955, months before Rosa Parks. Her action helped challenge bus segregation laws, leading to a landmark legal victory. Though long overlooked and marginalized, she later received recognition, and her arrest record was cleared in 2021.

Claudette Colvin, who became a pioneering figure in the United States civil rights movement after she was detained for refusing to give up her seat to a white woman on a segregated bus in Alabama in 1955, has died at the age of 86, according to a statement released by her foundation.
Colvin was only 15 years old when she carried out her act of defiance in the city of Montgomery, protesting the segregation laws in place at the time. Her protest occurred several months before Rosa Parks challenged the same laws in a similar manner in the same city—an incident that went on to receive far greater historical recognition.
In a tribute, Colvin’s foundation said she “leaves behind a legacy of courage that helped change the course of American history.”
Colvin’s action on March 2, 1955, was influenced in part by what she had learned while studying Black history in school. Reflecting on that moment in a 2021 interview, she explained that her thinking was focused on freedom.
“My mindset was on freedom,” Colvin said of her defiance. “So I was not going to move that day,” she added. “I told them that history had me glued to the seat.”
Her refusal came after the bus driver, who was taking her home from high school, ordered Black passengers to give up their seats to white passengers because the white section at the front of the bus was already full. Colvin later recalled that the white woman involved could have sat in the seat opposite her, but chose not to.
“She refused because … a white person wasn’t supposed to sit close to a negro,” Colvin said.
As a result of her actions, Colvin was briefly jailed on charges of disturbing public order. The following year, she became one of four Black female plaintiffs who filed a lawsuit challenging the segregation rules on buses in Montgomery. The case was successful and had far-reaching consequences for public transportation across the United States, extending beyond buses to include trains, airplanes, and taxis.
Despite her bravery, Colvin’s role in the movement was largely overshadowed by that of Rosa Parks, who was already a prominent member of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) at the time of her arrest for defying segregation laws. Parks’ detention sparked a year-long bus boycott in Montgomery, an action that elevated Martin Luther King Jr. to national prominence as the leading figure of the civil rights movement.
That boycott significantly advanced the struggle for Black Americans during the 1960s, contributing to the end of legal segregation and the securing of voting rights.
Colvin, who was born in Alabama in 1939 and was the eldest of eight sisters, faced personal challenges of her own. She was ostracized from the civil rights movement after becoming pregnant as an unmarried woman. For decades, she remained largely unrecognized for her contributions, working in the elderly care sector and living outside the public spotlight.
Recognition came later in life. In 2009, she was the subject of a biography by Phillip Hoose titled Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice, which won the US National Book Award for young people’s literature.
However, it was not until 2021 that the record of her 1955 arrest and adjudication of delinquency was formally expunged by a US court, following a petition she filed. At the time, Colvin explained why clearing her name mattered deeply to her.
“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