Claudette Colvin was a civil rights activist who, before Rosa Parks, refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger on March 2, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama[1][2]. She was arrested at age 15 and became one of four plaintiffs in *Browder v. Gayle*, the landmark federal court case that ruled Montgomery's segregated bus system unconstitutional[1][2]. Her act of defiance occurred nine months before Parks' more famous protest and led to significant legal battles that contributed to the desegregation of Montgomery's buses[3][5]. Colvin later moved to New York City, worked as a nurse's aide, and died of natural causes on January 13, 2026, at age 86[1][5].
Born in Birmingham, Alabama on September 5, 1939, Claudette Austin (later Colvin) was just 15 years old when she refused to move from her bus seat despite the driver's order to give it to a white passenger[2][5]. She was arrested and charged with violating segregation laws, an event that directly preceded Rosa Parks' arrest by nine months[1][5]. Colvin later became one of the four plaintiffs in *Browder v. Gayle*, which went to the Supreme Court and found that Montgomery's bus segregation violated the Fourteenth Amendment[2][3]. Two years after her arrest, she moved to New York City, had her second son Randy, and worked as a nurse's aide at a Manhattan nursing home before retiring in 2004[1][2]. More than six decades after her courageous act, an Alabama judge expunged her juvenile arrest record in 2021, and she died of natural causes at age 86 on January 13, 2026[1][5].
