Claudette Colvin, who helped found the US civil rights movement, dies at 86

Claudette Colvin, whose arrest in 1955 for refusing to give up her seat on a segregated Montgomery bus helped spark the modern civil rights movement, has died. He was 86 years old.

Her death was announced Tuesday by the Claudette Colvin Legacy Foundation. Ashley D. Roseboro of the organization confirmed that he died of natural causes in Texas.

Colvin, aged 15, was imprisoned nine months before Rosa Parks gained worldwide fame for refusing to give up her seat on a segregated bus.

He said his mind was ‘free’

Colvin was riding the bus on March 2, 1955, on his way home from high school. The first rows were reserved for white passengers. Colvin sat in the back with the other Black riders. When the white section was full, the bus driver ordered the Black passengers to give up their seats to the white passengers. Colvin refused.

“My mind was on freedom,” Colvin said in 2021 of his refusal to vacate his seat.

“So I couldn’t move that day,” he said. “I told them that history had me glued to the chair.”

At the time of Colvin’s arrest, frustration was growing over the way Black people were treated on city buses. Another black teenager, Mary Louise Smith, was arrested and fined that October for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger.

Colvin’s ‘often overlooked’ courage

It was the arrest of Parks, a former local NAACP activist, on December 1, 1955, that became the final catalyst for the year-long Montgomery Bus Boycott. The boycott made Pastor Martin Luther King Jr. he rose to prominence nationally and is considered the beginning of the modern human rights movement.

Colvin was one of four plaintiffs in the landmark lawsuit that outlawed racial discrimination on Montgomery buses. His death comes just over a month after Montgomery celebrated the 70th anniversary of the Bus Boycott.

Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed said Colvin’s actions “helped lay the legal and moral foundation for a movement that will change America.”

Colvin was never as well known as Park, and Reed said his bravery “was often overlooked.”

“Claudette Colvin’s life reminds us that movements are not only built by those whose names are most familiar, but by those whose courage comes early, quietly, and at great cost,” said Reed. “His legacy challenges us to tell the full truth of our history and honor every voice that helped bend the foundations of justice.”

Colvin in 2021 filed a petition to have his court record expunged. The judge accepted the request.

“When I think about why I want my name to be cleared by the government, it is because I believe that if that happens, it will show the generation that is growing up now that development is possible, and things are getting better,” said Colvin at the time. “It will inspire them to make the world a better place.”