Claudette Colvin

On March 2, 1955, a young Black woman refused to give up her seat to a white man. She demanded that it was her constitutional right to remain right where she was, and in turn, was arrested and jailed for her act of rebellion. 

That young woman was then fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin, who refused to give up her seat 9 months before Rosa Parks famously did so. 

Born in Montgomery, Alabama in 1939, Colvin was one of the pioneers of the civil rights movements of the 60s. Though she has often been left out of stories mentioning the fight for desegregation, Colvin’s court case, and her subsequent work for the N.A.A.C.P., had an undeniable impact on the civil rights movement. 

Just after Black History Month 1955, Colvin’s decision to remain in her seat was a result of hearing stories about Harriet Tubman and other Black leaders. In her memoir, she recalls feeling empowered by the conversations her classmates have been having about Jim Crow laws and injustices against Black citizens. 

“My head was just too full of Black history, you know, the oppression that we went through,” Colvin said in an interview with NPR. “It felt like Sojourner Truth was on one side pushing me down, and Harriet Tubman was on the other side of me pushing me down. I couldn’t get up.”

Colvin was arrested for refusing to give up her seat and became one of the plaintiffs in Browder v.Gayle, the court case that eventually overturned bus segregation laws in Alabama. 

Colvin has attributed her absence in conversations on desegregation to colorism and classism. Rosa Parks was older, held a job, and had a lighter complexion than Colvin- something she says was easier to swallow for white Americans. 

This incident wasn’t an isolated moment of activism for Colvin either- she had many dreams of going into politics. Speaking of the times she grew up in, Colvin reminds people that it wasn’t just adults fighting the fight for justice, but many teenagers and younger people as well. 

In 1956, she gave birth to her son, at the age of sixteen. Between her young motherhood and her participation in the Browder v. Gayle case, it was incredibly difficult for Colvin to land a job. She eventually landed a job as a nursing aide and worked as a nurse for 35 years. On May 20, 2018, Clovin was awarded a Congressional Certificate and an American flag.