Claudette Colvin, who refused to move seats on a bus at start of civil
rights movement, dies at 86
[January 14, 2026]
By KIMBERLY CHANDLER
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Claudette Colvin, whose 1955 arrest for refusing
to give up her seat on a segregated Montgomery bus helped spark the
modern civil rights movement, has died. She was 86.
Her death was announced Tuesday by the Claudette Colvin Legacy
Foundation. Ashley D. Roseboro of the organization confirmed she died of
natural causes in Texas.
Colvin, at age 15, was arrested nine months before Rosa Parks gained
international fame for also refusing to give up her seat on a segregated
bus.
Colvin had boarded the bus on March 2, 1955, on her way home from high
school. The first rows were reserved for white passengers. Colvin sat in
the rear with other Black passengers. When the white section became
full, the bus driver ordered Black passengers to relinquish their seats
to white passengers. Colvin refused.
“My mindset was on freedom,” Colvin said in 2021 of her refusal to give
up her seat.
“So I was not going to move that day,” she said. “I told them that
history had me glued to the seat.”
At the time of Colvin's arrest, frustration was mounting over how Black
people were treated on the city bus system. Another Black teenager, Mary
Louise Smith, was arrested and fined that October for refusing to give
up her seat to a white passenger.
It was the arrest of Parks, who was a local NAACP activist, on Dec. 1,
1955, that became the final catalyst for the yearlong Montgomery Bus
Boycott. The boycott propelled the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. into the
national limelight and is considered the start of the modern civil
rights movement.
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Claudette Colvin sits for a portrait, Feb. 5, 2009 in New York. (AP
Photo/Julie Jacobson, File)
Colvin was one of the four plaintiffs in the landmark lawsuit that
outlawed racial segregation on Montgomery’s buses. Her death comes
just over a month after Montgomery celebrated the 70th anniversary
of the Bus Boycott.
Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed said Colvin's action “helped lay the
legal and moral foundation for the movement that would change
America.”
Colvin was never as well-known as Parks, and Reed said her bravery
“was too often overlooked.”
“Claudette Colvin’s life reminds us that movements are built not
only by those whose names are most familiar, but by those whose
courage comes early, quietly, and at great personal cost," Reed
said. “Her legacy challenges us to tell the full truth of our
history and to honor every voice that helped bend the arc toward
justice.”
Colvin in 2021 filed a petition to have her court record expunged. A
judge granted the request.
“When I think about why I’m seeking to have my name cleared by the
state, it is because I believe if that happened it would show the
generation growing up now that progress is possible, and things do
get better," Colvin said at the time. “It will inspire them to make
the world better.”
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