Claudette Colvin, key figure in ending US bus segregation, dies at 86

By Gizem Nisa Demir

ISTANBUL (AA) - Claudette Colvin, whose quiet act of defiance helped dismantle racial segregation in the US, has died at the age of 86 in Texas, her foundation said on Wednesday.

Colvin was just 15 when she was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955 for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white passenger, nine months before Rosa Parks’ more widely known protest that became a defining moment of the civil rights movement.

Her arrest later played a pivotal role in the legal battle against segregation. Colvin was one of four plaintiffs in Browder v. Gayle, a landmark case that led the US Supreme Court to declare bus segregation unconstitutional.

“She leaves behind a legacy of courage that helped change the course of American history,” the Claudette Colvin Legacy Foundation said in a statement.

In a 2018 interview with the BBC, Colvin said she “was not frightened, but disappointed and angry,” recalling that she knew she “was sitting in the right seat.” She also said she felt inspired by Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth.

Her role remained largely unrecognized until a 2009 book detailed her story. Colvin later worked as a nurse in New York.