Claudette Colvin
b. 1939
Mine was the first cry for justice, and a loud one.
On 2 March 1955, nine months before Rosa Parks, 15 year old Claudette Colvin refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, to a white woman. She was arrested and charged with disturbing the peace, violating the segregation law, and assaulting a police officer. A juvenile court convicted her on all three counts and fined her ten dollars. On appeal in May 1955 the first two charges were dropped but the assault conviction was upheld.
In February 1956 she became one of four plaintiffs in Browder v. Gayle, the case that ended bus segregation in Alabama. A federal panel ruled for the plaintiffs in June 1956, and the Supreme Court upheld the decision in November and December of that year. In December 2021 a Montgomery court ordered her juvenile record expunged.