Claudette Colvin, who at age 15 was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a segregated Montgomery, Alabama, bus — nine months before Rosa Parks’ more widely recognized act of defiance — died Tuesday at 86. Her death was announced by the Claudette Colvin Legacy Foundation; Ashley D. Roseboro of the organization confirmed she died of natural causes in Texas.

Colvin’s March 2, 1955, arrest placed her at the legal center of the fight against bus segregation in Montgomery. She later served as one of four plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit that outlawed racial segregation on the city’s buses — a foundational legal victory of the civil rights movement whose significance her death has prompted renewed attention to.

Claudette Colvin, who at age 15 refused to give up her seat on a segregated Montgomery, Alabama, bus — an act of resistance nine months before Rosa Parks’ more widely recognized defiance — died Tuesday at 86.

Her death was announced by the Claudette Colvin Legacy Foundation. Ashley D. Roseboro of the organization confirmed Colvin died of natural causes in Texas.

Colvin’s 1955 arrest placed her at the legal center of the fight against bus segregation in Montgomery, and she later served as one of four plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit that outlawed racial segregation on the city’s buses. Though her role was for decades overshadowed by Parks, her courage and legal testimony were central to one of the civil rights movement’s defining legal victories.

The arrest

Colvin boarded a Montgomery city bus on March 2, 1955, on her way home from high school. The front rows were reserved for white passengers; Colvin sat in the rear section with other Black passengers. When the white section filled, the bus driver ordered Black passengers to relinquish their seats. Colvin refused.

“My mindset was on freedom,” Colvin said in 2021, reflecting on her refusal. “So I was not going to move that day. I told them that history had me glued to the seat.”

Her arrest came nine months before Parks, who was a local NAACP activist, was arrested on December 1, 1955 — the act that became the final catalyst for the yearlong Montgomery Bus Boycott. The boycott propelled the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. into national prominence and is considered the start of the modern civil rights movement.

Colvin was not the only Black teenager to face arrest for a similar refusal that year. Mary Louise Smith was arrested and fined in October 1955 for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger.

Colvin was one of four plaintiffs in the landmark federal lawsuit that challenged and ultimately outlawed racial segregation on Montgomery’s buses.

Her death came just over a month after Montgomery celebrated the 70th anniversary of the Bus Boycott.

Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed said Tuesday that Colvin’s action “helped lay the legal and moral foundation for the movement that would change America.” 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.”

Expungement

In 2021, Colvin 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.”