Months before Rosa Parks famously refused to give up her seat to a white man on an Alabama bus in December 1955, Claudette Colvin, now 82, refused to give up her seat to a white woman nine months earlier. Her name is not as well known, but her act of civil disobedience is just as important.
On Thursday, a judge in Alabama wiped Colvin’s juvenile record clean.
Colvin was just 15 when she held fast to her seat on a segregated Montgomery bus.
Colvin said she was with three classmates and "sitting in the section that was allowed for colored people" when a white woman boarded.
"In segregated law, a colored person couldn't sit across the aisle from a white person," she said. "They had to sit behind the white person to show that they were superior and the colored people was inferior."
The bus driver asked the three teens to move, and two out of the three did. Colvin did not.
"I said I could not move because history had me glued to the seat," she told CBS News. "And they say, 'How is that?' I say, 'Well, it felt as though Harriet Tubman's hands were pushing me down on one shoulder, and Sojourner Truth’s hand was pushing me down on the other shoulder.'"
The driver called the police. An officer boarded the bus and “manhandled” her to remove her, she says.
She faced three charges. And although the charges for disturbing the peace and breaking segregation laws were dropped, a charge for assaulting a police officer stayed with her for over six decades.
"They said I clawed the policeman and I kicked the police. I didn't do all of that," Colvin said.
Colvin’s case was sent to juvenile court due to her age, and according to the Associated Press she was placed on probation “as a ward of the state pending good behavior.” In the decades that passed, Colvin was never notified if she’d finished her parole, and her family lived under the threat that she could be arrested at any time.
In October she petitioned the court to have her record expunged.
“I am an old woman now. Having my records expunged will mean something to my grandchildren and great-grandchildren. And it will mean something for other Black children,” Colvin said at the time in a sworn statement.
Juvenile Court Judge Calvin L. Williams approved her request.
“When I think about why I’m seeking to have my name cleared by the state, it is because I believe if that happened it would show the generation growing up now that progress is possible, and things do get better. It will inspire them to make the world better,” she said.
Colvin was named as a plaintiff in the landmark lawsuit outlawing racial segregation on Montgomery’s buses.
On Thursday, a judge in Alabama wiped Colvin’s juvenile record clean.
Colvin was just 15 when she held fast to her seat on a segregated Montgomery bus.
Colvin said she was with three classmates and "sitting in the section that was allowed for colored people" when a white woman boarded.
"In segregated law, a colored person couldn't sit across the aisle from a white person," she said. "They had to sit behind the white person to show that they were superior and the colored people was inferior."
The bus driver asked the three teens to move, and two out of the three did. Colvin did not.
"I said I could not move because history had me glued to the seat," she told CBS News. "And they say, 'How is that?' I say, 'Well, it felt as though Harriet Tubman's hands were pushing me down on one shoulder, and Sojourner Truth’s hand was pushing me down on the other shoulder.'"
The driver called the police. An officer boarded the bus and “manhandled” her to remove her, she says.
She faced three charges. And although the charges for disturbing the peace and breaking segregation laws were dropped, a charge for assaulting a police officer stayed with her for over six decades.
"They said I clawed the policeman and I kicked the police. I didn't do all of that," Colvin said.
Colvin’s case was sent to juvenile court due to her age, and according to the Associated Press she was placed on probation “as a ward of the state pending good behavior.” In the decades that passed, Colvin was never notified if she’d finished her parole, and her family lived under the threat that she could be arrested at any time.
In October she petitioned the court to have her record expunged.
“I am an old woman now. Having my records expunged will mean something to my grandchildren and great-grandchildren. And it will mean something for other Black children,” Colvin said at the time in a sworn statement.
Juvenile Court Judge Calvin L. Williams approved her request.
“When I think about why I’m seeking to have my name cleared by the state, it is because I believe if that happened it would show the generation growing up now that progress is possible, and things do get better. It will inspire them to make the world better,” she said.
Colvin was named as a plaintiff in the landmark lawsuit outlawing racial segregation on Montgomery’s buses.