Overview
- The Claudette Colvin Legacy Foundation and her family announced she died Tuesday at a hospice in Texas at age 86, with spokesperson Ashley D. Roseboro confirming natural causes.
- Colvin was arrested on March 2, 1955, for refusing to give up her seat to a White woman in Montgomery, nine months before Rosa Parks’ better-known protest.
- She later served as one of four Black female plaintiffs in Browder v. Gayle, the case that led federal courts and the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down bus segregation in 1956.
- A Montgomery judge expunged her 1955 juvenile record in 2021, a symbolic step Colvin said would show younger generations that progress is possible.
- Montgomery Mayor Steven L. Reed praised her overlooked courage, and the foundation said memorial details will be announced as broader recognition of her life continues, including a planned film about her story.