Nationwide — Civil rights pioneer Claudette Colvin died at 86, leaving behind a legacy as a young activist who helped end bus segregation in Montgomery, Alabama. She passed away on Tuesday, January 13, of natural causes, her family confirmed.
“They’re grieving her loss but remembering the legacy she left and hoping that through [her] foundation they can continue to live out that legacy,” spokesman Ashley D. Roseboro said, according to People. “While Claudette was a civil rights hero, they remember her as Claudette Colvin, the mother, the grandmother.”
At just 15, Colvin refused to give up her seat on a segregated Montgomery bus on March 2, 1955, nine months before Rosa Parks’ protest. Police arrested her after a bus driver complained that Black girls were sitting too close to White passengers.
“I said, ‘I’m not getting up,'” Colvin later recalled. “It felt as though Harriet Tubman’s hands were pushing me down on one shoulder, and Sojourner Truth was pushing down on another. History had me glued to the seat.”
After her arrest, Colvin was placed on indefinite probation as a ward of the state. She continued her fight for justice and joined three other Black women in the landmark Browder v. Gayle case. In 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregation on Alabama buses was unconstitutional, a major win for the civil rights movement.
In 2021, Colvin’s record was formally cleared by an Alabama family court judge. She is survived by her son Randy, her sisters, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Funeral arrangements in Birmingham, Alabama, will be announced at a later date.