Claudette Colvin: The Courage That Came First
American civil rights activist Claudette Colvin (1939–2026) was just 15 years old when she made history. In early 1955, the Montgomery, Alabama, high school student refused to give up her seat on a segregated city bus—nine months before Rosa Parks would do the same. Colvin’s arrest and conviction marked a critical yet long-overlooked moment in the Civil Rights Movement. As civil rights attorney Fred Gray later said, “If there had been no Claudette Colvin, there would have been no Rosa Parks.”
Born on September 5, 1939, in Birmingham, Alabama, Colvin was the daughter of Mary Jane Gadson and carried the surname of her biological father, C. P. Austin. Unable to support her daughters on her own, Gadson’s aunt, Mary Ann Colvin, and her husband Q. P. Colvin took in Claudette and her younger sister, Delphine, giving them the Colvin name. The family lived first in Pine Level, a rural sharecropping community near Montgomery, before relocating to the King Hill neighborhood of the city. Tragedy struck in 1952 when Delphine died of polio on Claudette’s 13th birthday.
That same year, Colvin began ninth grade at Booker T. Washington High School, one of Montgomery’s two all-Black high schools. Only weeks later, students were shaken by the arrest and death sentence of Jeremiah Reeves, a Black teenager convicted by an all-white jury after a coerced confession. The injustice left a lasting impression on Colvin and her classmates.
A serious, book-loving student, Colvin was deeply influenced by her teachers. English teacher Geraldine Nesbitt introduced students to constitutional law, democracy, and human rights, while history teacher Josie Lawrence explored African and African American history. During Negro History Week in February 1955, those lessons crystallized into something powerful for Colvin—an understanding of her rights and her worth.
On March 2, 1955, after school, Colvin boarded a Montgomery City Lines bus and sat in the middle section, a space Black riders were allowed to occupy only under certain conditions. When the bus filled and a white woman was left standing, the driver ordered Colvin and three other Black students to move. The others complied. Colvin did not.
“We had been studying the Constitution,” she later recalled. “I knew I had rights.” More than that, she was tired of the humiliation. She stayed seated.
The bus driver summoned authorities. Despite pressure from passengers and officers, Colvin refused to move. She was forcibly dragged from the bus by police officers, kicked, handcuffed, and taken to the city jail—not juvenile detention. There, she endured further humiliation before finally being released on bail, paid by her pastor. That night, her family stayed awake in fear of retaliation, guarding their home against potential violence.
Colvin was charged with violating segregation laws and assaulting a police officer—based on a minor scratch incurred during her arrest. Though city officials privately admitted the arrest was wrong, she was convicted. The case made national news, including a brief mention in The New York Times.
Civil rights leaders, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., took note. While Colvin was not chosen as the public face of a boycott—due in part to her age and later pregnancy—her courage had already helped ignite momentum. When Rosa Parks was arrested on December 1, 1955, the groundwork had been laid.
Colvin’s most lasting impact came through the courts. In 1956, she became one of five plaintiffs in Browder v. Gayle, a federal lawsuit challenging bus segregation. The case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that segregated public transportation was unconstitutional—effectively ending the Montgomery Bus Boycott and Jim Crow transit laws nationwide.
At just 17, Colvin was a new mother and found herself unable to secure work in Montgomery. She eventually moved to New York City, where she worked for decades as a nurse’s aide. For many years, her role in history went largely unrecognized.
That began to change later in life. In 2009, her story reached a new generation through Phillip Hoose’s Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice, which won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. In 2017, Montgomery officially declared March 2 Claudette Colvin Day. In 2021, an Alabama judge granted her long-awaited request to have her juvenile records expunged—finally clearing her name.
“When I think about why I’m seeking to have my name cleared,” Colvin wrote, “it’s because I want young people to know that progress is possible… and that things do get better.”
Claudette Colvin died of natural causes on January 13, 2026, at the age of 86. Her death came just weeks after the 70th anniversary of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Reflecting on her legacy, Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed said, “Movements are built not only by the names we know best, but by those whose courage comes early, quietly, and at great personal cost.”
Claudette Colvin’s courage came first—and it helped change a nation.
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