Overview: Claudette Colvin, a civil rights activist who, at the tender age of 16, refused to give up her bus seat to a white person in Montgomery, Alabama, nine months before Rosa Parks did the same. Calvin died in January at the age of 86. While Parks became the face of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Colvin was deemed “not the best face for the movement” due to her age and also because she was an unwed mother. However, she eventually joined three other women as plaintiffs in the Browder v. Gayle lawsuit that ended the city’s bus segregation.
S.E. Williams
Black History was never forsaken by Black people, and yet the names of some accomplished ancestors are rarely remembered, while the names of others are rarely recalled, even by those most attentive to our history.
Many can recite the names of Ella Baker, John Lewis, Diane Nash among others, recalling their courage and leadership related to lunch counter-sit-ins and other forms of civil disobedience; or the leadership of James Farmer and the Freedom Riders who challenged segregation on interstate buses. We can readily lift up the names of Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Du Bois, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Marcus Garvey, Dorothy Height, Mamie Till Mobley, Martin Luther King, Jr., Corretta Scott King, Malcolm X, Rosa Parks and others who easily rise to the top of our minds when we reflect on the long struggle for freedom.
Through slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, the Lynching Years, the Civil Rights Era, the Black Lives Matter Movement and beyond, everyday heroes and sheroes willing to work for the greater good of all concerned, have and will always exist in the Black community. As the celebrated Black poet Sterling A. Brown wrote—strong [women and] men just keep on coming.
In my column last week, I reflected on the Ghanaian principle of Sankofa that teaches us to go back to the lessons and practices of the past, to draw on those lessons and use them not only to inform the present, but to also use it to inform the future. This is also an important way to honor those who came before.
On January 13, the Black community lost someone whose actions were inspired in this way. After 86 journeys around the sun, Claudette Colvin, quietly slipped the bounds of this life. She died of natural causes while under hospice care in the state of Texas, according to an AP report.
Few may remember the name Claudette Colvin, let alone the role she played in defying unjust laws and practices that undermined the humanity and full rights of citizenship of Black Americans.
History tells us that on March 2, 1955—nine months before Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her bus seat and spark the Montgomery Bus Boycott—then 16-year-old Claudette Colvin had already set a precedent of resistance on this issue when she refused to give up her own bus seat to a white person right there in the City of Montgomery, A. Colvin’s arrest did not garner the nation’s attention as the exact same act by Parks did nine months later but it served to intensify the growing frustration among Black citizens about the wretched injustice of segregation and its racist policies.
Why, then, you may wonder, did Rosa Parks become the face of the Montgomery Bus Boycott rather than Colvin’s? Some have written that it was because she was “less publicly embraced” at the time, still others largely agree that the NAACP chose 42-year-old Parks because she was a civil rights activist. Others have speculated over the years that the choice may have been driven by “colorism,” the remnants of white supremacy brainwashing in the Black community rooted in the stratification of skin color where those with lighter skin tones are viewed more favorably.
NAACP officials at the time, agreed that 16-year-old Colvin—who also happened to be an unwed mother, “would not be the best face for the movement.” Even though Colvin, as a high school student, was involved with the NAACP, there was a general belief among its leadership that with Parks as the face of resistance, the movement stood a better chance of gaining the support of Montgomery’s middle class.
Understandably, Colvin felt slighted, because in reality, she was slighted. However, she did eventually agree to join three other women—including Mary Louise Smith, Aurelia Browder and Susie McDonald—as plaintiffs in the ultimately successful, Browder v. Gayle lawsuit that ended the city’s bus segregation and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Most civil rights experts agree, the Supreme Court’s ruling in Browder v. Gayle helped accelerate much needed change across the south.
Colvin, born Claudette Austin on September 5, 1939, used public transportation to and from school. This created the opportunity for her to execute an independent and personal act of resistance. She refused to give up her seat on the bus in Montgomery, AL, nearly 71 years ago.
Her action that fateful day was not by accident. History tells us she was an active member of the NAACP Youth Council at her school, which often discussed ways to protest segregation.
The spirit of Sankofa clearly lived within Colvin. When recalling what she was thinking the day she refused to give up her bus seat, Colvin reminisced, “My head was just too full of Black history,” she told NPR during a 2009 interview. “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.”
Sadly, it took years for Colvin to gain recognition for her contributions—recognition that grew slowly over time. In 2021, Colvin successfully petitioned to have her 1955 juvenile arrest record for her courageous act of civil disobedience expunged. Although some consider this merely a symbolic act, it was one documented way of acknowledging Colvin’s courage and the injustice she’d stared in the face as a teen.
In recent years, authors, historians, filmmakers and others have lifted her up and in the process, brought renewed public attention to her role as a foundational figure in the fight for racial equality.
On her passing, Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed reflected on her legacy by highlighting how her act of courage “helped lay the moral and legal foundation for the movement that would change America.”
Colvin’s legacy lives on in the barriers she broke, the racist laws she helped eliminate and the future she envisioned for coming generations, free of racist ideologies, policies and practices.
For almost 40 years, Colvin rarely talked about her remarkable and heroic act of resistance. When she did open up, one of her statements was sacredly Sankographic. “I’d like my grandchildren,” she said, “to be able to see that their grandmother stood up for something, a long time ago.”
When Rosa Parks transitioned at the age of 92 in 2005, she became the first woman to “lie in honor” in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, D.C. While Colvin’s passing was barely acknowledged even within the Black community.
As we celebrate Black History Month 2026, let us remember to call the name of Claudette Colvin and tell her story to our own children and grandchildren. Tell them about how, as a teenager, she was courageous and stood up for something a long time ago that helped make life better for them and for future generations.
Of course, this is just my opinion. I’m keeping it real.