Claudette Colvin

Nearly a year before Rosa Parks became the public face of the Civil Rights Movement, a fifteen-year-old student of Montgomery, Alabama, made her own heroic stand in defying white authority and discriminatory segregation laws. Claudette Colvin refused to give up her seat to a white woman on Wednesday, March 2, 1955 as required by law. Inspired by the courage of freedom fighter and Underground Railroad leader Harriet Tubman to maintain her defiant stance, Claudette was arrested and thrown into the city jail, despite being only a juvenile. Most importantly, Claudette's brave actions sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott Movement and the Civil Rights Movement, inspiring not only Rosa Parks, but also Dr. Martin Luther King. This is the unforgettable story of an American heroine who helped to change the world.