Claudette Colvin, civil rights pioneer who refused a bus seat in 1955, dies at 86

Civil rights pioneer Claudette Colvin has died at 86; she died on the morning of Tuesday, Jan. 13, of natural causes, a spokesman for her family, Ashley D. Roseboro, confirmed to People.

Colvin was 15 when, on March 2, 1955, she refused to give up her seat on a segregated Montgomery bus — nine months before Rosa Parks. A bus driver called police after two Black girls sat near two White girls and Colvin was arrested, according to the Associated Press. Following the arrest she was made a ward of the State and placed on indefinite probation, the Claudette Colvin Foundation's website says. Colvin joined three other Black women, Aurelia Browder, Susie McDonald and Mary Louise Smith, in filing Browder v. Gayle; the Supreme Court Historical Society says the 1956 Supreme Court ruling that segregation on Alabama public buses was unconstitutional effectively ended the Montgomery Bus Boycott and implicitly overturned the "separate but equal" doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson.

Roseboro said the family is grieving while remembering Colvin's legacy and hopes to continue it through her foundation. In 2021 an Alabama family court judge granted Colvin's petition to expunge her record. She is survived by her son Randy, her sisters, grandchildren and great-grandchildren; her older son Raymond died in 1993. Her funeral will be scheduled in Birmingham, Ala., at a later date.

Key Topics

Politics, Claudette Colvin, Browder V. Gayle, Montgomery Bus Boycott, Rosa Parks, Plessy V. Ferguson