Unsung US civil rights pioneer Claudette Colvin dies, aged 86

Claudette Colvin, a pioneer of the US civil rights movement, has died at the age of 86. In Montgomery, Alabama, on March 2, 1955, the 15-year-old Colvin was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white woman on a segregated bus, nine months before Rosa Parks' similar act. Colvin's defiance and subsequent arrest contributed to growing frustration over segregation in Montgomery's bus system. She became one of four Black female plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging segregated bus seating, which successfully impacted public transportation laws throughout the US. Her actions helped spark the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the broader civil rights movement. Colvin died of natural causes in Texas.

Claudette Colvin, a pioneer of the US Civil Rights movement, has died at age 86. In 1955, at the age of 15, Colvin was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white person, nine months before Rosa Parks' similar act of defiance. Colvin's protest and subsequent arrest challenged Montgomery's bus segregation policies and was part of a legal case that led to a Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation on buses. Despite being the first to be arrested for this act, her story remained largely unknown until a book about her was published in 2009. Colvin later became a nurse in New York and died in Texas.