Claudette Colvin's record expunged 66 years after she refused to give bus seat to white person


Claudette Colvin, 82, speaks alongside Civil rights attorney Fred Gray, left, during a press conference at the Montgomery County Family Court on October 26, 2021, in Montgomery, Ala., after petitioning for her juvenile record to be expunged. (Photo by Julie Bennett/Getty Images)

Colvin refused to give up her bus seat nine months before Rosa Parks did the same.

A judge in Montgomery, Alabama has expunged the juvenile court record of Claudette Colvin, the Black woman who famously refused to let a white person take her city bus seat on March 2, 1955 — nine months before fellow civil rights legend Rosa Parks committed the same act of civil disobedience.

The often-overlooked Colvin was an unmarried and pregnant 15-years-old when she defied her city and state's unjust segregation laws 66 years ago. Civil rights leaders at the time feared Colvin's pregnancy and youth made her less reliable than Parks, who was 42 at the time, so she was not chosen to serve as a standard bearer for their integration movement.

But Colvin's contribution to the movement has gained recognition in recent years.

In October, Colvin, now 82, filed a motion asking Montgomery's juvenile courts to seal, destroy and expunge her records. On Nov. 24, Montgomery Juvenile Court Judge Calvin Williams signed an order granting Colvin's wish, according to multiple sources.

In his ruling, Williams wrote that his decision represented, "a measure of statutory right and fairness," to Colvin, "for what has since been recognized as a courageous act on her behalf and on behalf of a community of affected people," according to the Montgomery Advertiser.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Colvin made it clear to reporters and supporters that her motion was more than a symbolic gesture.

"My reason for doing it is I get a chance to tell my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren, what life was like living in segregated America, in segregated Montgomery," she said. "The laws, the hardship, the intimidation that took place during those years and the reason why that day I took a stand and defied the segregated law."

In 2009, Colvin told NPR that the NAACP and other black organizations believed Parks would be a better civil rights icon than her in 1955 because Parks "was an adult."

"They didn't think teenagers would be reliable," Colvin told NPR. But Colvin, who is dark-skinned, also said she believed Parks' appearance played a factor.

"Her skin texture was the kind that people associate with the middle class," Colvin said. "She fit that profile."

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