Claudette Colvin

Claudette Colvin of Montgomery, Ala., is shown in this 1955 file photo. In 1955, Colvin refused to give up her bus seat to a white person in Montgomery, was arrested and convicted. Later, a boycott of buses by blacks helped launch the modern civil rights movement. (Montgomery Advertiser, File)

One of the women who was arrested before Rosa Parks in 1955. On March 2, 1955, she, just as Parks had, openly refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery segregated bus to a white passenger. Her arrest preceded the arrest of Parks by nine months.

She was only 15 years old at the time. At the time, she was a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Youth Council.

Her act of civil defiance did not spark a bus boycott as Parks’ arrest did. Some controversy surrounded the use of Colvin as a test case to challenge seating practices in the Capital City. Some leaders were reluctant to use Colvin, who later became pregnant, and gave birth about a year after her arrest.

Colvin later testified in a Montgomery federal court hearing, in the Browder v. Gayle case, which declared segregated busing in Montgomery unconstitutional.