Nearly a year before Rosa Parks’ historic arrest, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin made a quiet but powerful stand against segregation in Montgomery, Alabama. In March 1955, she refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger and was arrested.
For decades, her role was largely overlooked. Colvin later said she wasn’t afraid—only angry—because she knew she was “sitting in the right seat,” recalling that the strength of Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth seemed to hold her in place.
Although Rosa Parks became the public face of the movement, Colvin played a vital legal role. She was one of four plaintiffs whose testimony helped the U.S. Supreme Court rule bus segregation unconstitutional, ending the practice nationwide.
Claudette Colvin has now died at age 86. While her name was long absent from history books, she is now recognized as a pioneering civil rights activist whose courage helped change America.