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On March 2, 1955, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. She was arrested and charged with violating segregation laws. Colvin was one of the first women to resist bus segregation, and her case was a precursor to Rosa Parks’ famous protest. Her activism was one of the first major events to ignite the modern civil rights movement. Colvin’s case also became one of the four test cases used in the landmark Browder v. Gayle lawsuit that successfully challenged the constitutionality of Montgomery’s bus segregation laws. Because she was an unmarried teenage mother, however, civil rights leaders decided to use Rosa Parks rather than Colvin as the public face of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.Summarized to 99 words
Fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white woman in March 1955. Her defiance occurred months before Rosa Parks’ more famous protest. Colvin’s arrest became a crucial catalyst for the modern civil rights movement. Although she was one of the first women to resist bus segregation, activists later chose Parks as the boycott’s public figurehead because Colvin was a teenage mother. Nevertheless, Colvin’s bravery was legally significant; she was a key witness in Browder v. Gayle, the lawsuit that successfully declared bus segregation unconstitutional.
