Birmingham, Alabama (September 5, 1939- January 13, 2026) 86 yrs

Claudette Colvin (née Austin) was an American pioneer of the 1950s civil rights Movement and nurse aide. On March 2, 1955, she was arrested at the age of 15 in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her seat to a white woman on a crowded, segregated bus. It occurred nine months before the similar, more widely known incident in which Rosa Parks, secretary of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), helped spark the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott. In an interview, Colvin reflected on her protest and why she did what she did. She stated, “I was done talking about ‘good hair’ and ‘good skin’ but not addressing our grievances. I was tired of adults complaining about how badly they were treated and not doing anything about it. I’d had enough of just feeling angry about Jeremiah Reeves [a classmate who had been sentenced to death in 1953 on specious charges that he had sexually assaulted white women]. I was tired of hoping for justice. When the moment came, I was ready.