Claudette Colvin

Claudette Colvin was a 15-year-old student at Booker T. Washington High School in Montgomery, Alabama when, on March 2, 1955 — nine months before Rosa Parks — she refused to give up her seat to a white woman on a city bus. She was arrested, handcuffed, and taken to jail.

Civil rights leaders initially considered using Colvin's case to challenge bus segregation, but decided against it — reportedly because she was young, dark-skinned, and became pregnant shortly after. They waited for a more "respectable" plaintiff, and Rosa Parks became the face of the boycott.

But Colvin's legal contribution was crucial. She was one of four plaintiffs in Browder v. Gayle, the federal case that actually struck down bus segregation in Montgomery — not the boycott itself. For decades, her role was virtually unknown. Only in recent years has her story received the recognition it deserves, reminding us that movements are built by ordinary people whose names don't always make the history books.