Photo: Getty Images North America
Claudette Colvin, the civil rights pioneer whose quiet act of defiance helped dismantle segregation on Montgomery buses, has died, per theGrio. She was 86.
On Tuesday (January 13), the Claudette Colvin Legacy Foundation confirmed that the civil rights activist died in Texas. Her cause of death remains unclear.
Long before Rosa Parks became the public face of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Colvin was a 15-year-old high school student who 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.
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.
In 2021, more than six decades after her arrest, Colvin’s juvenile record was officially expunged.
“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.”
The Black Information Network is your source for Black News! Get the latest news 24/7 on The Black Information Network. Listen now on the iHeartRadio app or click HERE to tune in live.