Civil Rights Legend Claudette Colvin, First to Sit for Bus Desgregation Inspired Generations

Claudette Colvin, the civil rights pioneer whose quiet act of defiance helped dismantle segregation on Montgomery buses, has died of natural causes. She was 86.

On Tuesday, Jan. 13, the Claudette Colvin Legacy Foundation confirmed that the civil rights activist died in Texas.

Long before Rosa Parks became the public face of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Colvin who at the time was a 15-year-old high school student in an act of justified defiance refused to give up her seat on a segregated city bus. On March 2, 1955, a Montgomery bus driver called the police after claiming two Black girls were seated too close to white passengers, violating Jim Crow laws. While another girl moved to the back, Colvin stayed put. She was forcibly removed from the bus and arrested.

“I recited Edgar Allan Poe, Annabel Lee, the characters of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the Lord’s Prayer, and the 23rd Psalm,” Colvin later recalled, saying she feared the officers might sexually assault her.

Colvin was ultimately convicted of assaulting the officers, though charges of disturbing the peace and violating segregation laws were dropped. Despite her courage, civil rights leaders didn’t elevate her as the movement’s symbol. Colvin later said her age, class background, and darker complexion worked against her, and rumors about her pregnancy, which occurred after her arrest, further sidelined her.

“They didn’t think teenagers would be reliable,” Colvin told NPR in 2009, explaining why the movement instead rallied around Parks, then 42.

“My reason for doing it is I get a chance to tell my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren, what life was like living in segregated America,” Colvin said at the time. “The laws, the hardship, the intimidation — and the reason why that day I took a stand.”

Still, Colvin’s impact was profound. Colvin became a key plaintiff in Browder v. Gayle, the 1956 Supreme Court case that declared bus segregation unconstitutional and brought the Montgomery Bus Boycott to a historic end.

Colvin didn’t choose this action lightly. At the time, she was an honors student at Booker T. Washington High School. Colvin had just completed studying Black History and learning about injustices in the South. She was also active in her school’s NAACP Youth Council, and had been considering ways to protest.

“I felt as though Harriet Tubman was pushing me down on one shoulder and Sojourner Truth was pushing me down on the other,” she said. “So, therefore, history had me glued to the seat. That was the reason I could not move.”

In 2021, more than six decades after her arrest, Colvin’s juvenile record was officially expunged.

“To us, she was more than a historical figure. She was the heart of our family, wise, resilient, and grounded in faith,” the Claudette Colvin Foundation said in a statement announcing her death. “We will remember her laughter, her sharp wit, and her unwavering belief in justice and human dignity.”

Atlanta City Councilman Michael Juilan Bond said in a statement:

“Today we honor the life and legacy of Claudette Colvin, a pioneering figure in the American civil rights movement whose courageous refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus in 1955 came nine months before the more widely known act of resistance by Rosa Parks. At just 15 years old, Claudette’s defiance against Montgomery’s segregation laws — standing her ground when ordered to move for a white passenger — sparked critical legal challenges to racial injustice and helped lay the legal and moral foundation for the Montgomery Bus Boycott,” Atlanta City Councilman Michael Julian Bond said in a statement.

“Though history long overlooked her in favor of Parks, who became a national symbol of the movement, Claudette’s contribution was indispensable. She was one of the plaintiffs in the landmark federal lawsuit that ultimately led the U.S. Supreme Court to declare segregation on public buses unconstitutional and brought a decisive legal end to Jim Crow transit practices. Claudette Colvin’s quiet strength and unwavering stand for justice continue to inspire us as we advance the ongoing work of civil rights and equality.”