Who Is Claudette Colvin? Teen Refused To Give Up Seat Before Rosa Parks

Many know Rosa Parks' role in the civil rights movement, but few have heard of Claudette Colvin, who refused to give up her seat on a public bus to a White person months before Parks' heroic act.

The year 1955 was monumental for people of color, specifically women who advanced the movement by refusing to be moved. Both Colvin and Parks, as well as more women throughout the year, stood up for their right to sit where they wanted to on bus systems throughout the segregated South.

Colvin was just 15 when she was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama for not giving up her seat on a bus to a White person. When asked to move by police officers, she screamed, “It’s my constitutional right,” she told CNN.

The now 81-year-old was involved in the “Browder v. Gayle” case along with three others who were also arrested on the Montgomery bus system. The case eventually went to the Supreme Court, where the outcome ended bus line segregation in the entire state -- a huge moment in civil rights history.

Parks was 42 when she committed her act of defiance came on Dec. 1, 1955, about nine months after Colvin, in the same city of Montgomery. She died in 2005 but lives on as a civil rights icon.

Colvin's name isn’t heard as much as Park’s because of her age and emotional state as a teenager that wouldn't have made her a good candidate to be the face of the boycott, Biography reported.

Although Colvin isn’t the face of change for ending segregation on the bus system, she has been awarded the MLK Jr. Medal of Freedom and was the subject of a National Book Award novel, “Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice.” March 2 also marks “Claudette Colvin Day” in Montgomery.

Many social media users were happy to see Colvin finally getting the attention she deserves after many years.

“I’m glad I’m here to see the change,” Colvin told CNN’s, Abby Phillip.