By Barnett Wright | The Birmingham Times
Claudette Colvin, whose 1955 arrest for refusing to give up her seat on a segregated Montgomery bus helped spark the modern Civil Rights movement, was remembered Saturday in Birmingham as a Civil Rights legend, trailblazer and loving mom who adored her six grandchildren.
Mrs. Colvin, 86, who died on January 13, was celebrated during a two-hour service at Greater Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church in SW Birmingham by family, friends, residents and a host of dignitaries including former U.S. Senator and current Alabama gubernatorial candidate Doug Jones; Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed; former Birmingham Mayor William Bell and Alabama State Senator Merika Coleman.
Colvin, at age 15, was arrested nine months before Rosa Parks gained international fame for also refusing to give up her seat on a segregated bus.
Colvin had boarded the bus on March 2, 1955, on her way home from high school. The first rows were reserved for white passengers. Colvin sat in the rear with other Black passengers. When the white section became full, the bus driver ordered Black passengers to relinquish their seats to white passengers. Colvin refused.
“There’s a lot that has been said and written about Claudette Colvin but if you listen carefully and read carefully, you’re going to hear predominantly two words, ‘courage’ and ‘justice’,” Jones said. “Courage. A 15-year-old Black girl in a Jim Crow city, in a Jim Crow society, standing up to a Jim Crow police force … and this young girl had the courage to defy that system of law and custom and oppression. And thereby created justice not just for the Black community but for everyone.”
“By sitting down, Mrs. Colvin took a stand against segregation,” said Arthur L. Lane, senior pastor of St. Matthew Missionary Baptist Church in Corpus Christi, Texas, who delivered the eulogy.
“She was Black, she was poor, but she refused to surrender her seat, her rights or her dignity,” said Lane, son of famed Selma pastor F.D. Reese. “Claudette Colvin sat down physically but stood up courageously so that people everywhere who looked like her could sit anywhere at any time on any bus.”
After being arrested in March 1955, two of the three charges against Colvin were dropped, but the arrest and conviction remained on her record. In October 2021, with several dozen supporters there to cheer her on, Colvin, filed a petition in Montgomery County Family Court to have her criminal record expunged.
A month later in Montgomery, presiding Family Court Judge Calvin Williams issued an order granting the expungement. During Saturday’s services Williams said, “I never imagined that I would have the honor to meet this trailblazer, this Civil Rights legend . . . In his mysterious way God arranged for me, an African American, to be the presiding judge over a court that in 1955 looked nothing like me. It was this court in 1955 that convicted 15-year -old Claudette Colvin for refusing to give up her seat to a white woman … Mrs. Colvin would return to that same court [66 years later] to correct an injustice. It fell to me, a byproduct of the movement that she sparked, to grant her the justice that she so long had been denied.”
For decades, Colvin’s role in the boycott was overshadowed. It was the arrest of Parks, who was a local NAACP activist, on Dec. 1, 1955, that became the final catalyst for the yearlong Montgomery Bus Boycott. The boycott propelled the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. into the national limelight and is considered the start of the modern Civil Rights movement.
“[Mrs. Colvin] planted seeds that others reaped,” Lane said. “Rosa Parks was the face of the movement, but Claudette Colvin was the spark of the movement. Her stance on March 2, 1955 helped to lay the moral and legal foundation to undo segregation laws as it pertains to transportation … I’m not throwing water on Sister Parks,” Lane added. “It’s long overdue that Sister Colvin gets her rightful place in history … Her legacy has helped generations she has never met — children who ride buses for free; citizens who vote freely and voices that can now speak loudly and boldly.”
Reed, Montgomery AL’s first Black mayor said Mrs. Colvin was the “moral foundation” of the Civil Rights movement. “None of the progress that we see [including Black mayors in Birmingham and Montgomery] … would be possible without her sacrifices,” Reed said. “She acted because she knew what was right and in doing so she became part of the moral foundation of the Civil Rights movement. History, unfortunately, does not always honor courage in real time. But time has a way of revealing the truth. And the truth is that Claudette Colvin’s legacy mattered, her stand mattered, her voice mattered, and her legacy will continue to matter.”
Dr. Randy Colvin said his mother enjoyed nothing more than her six grandchildren.
“As she was transitioning, she got to speak with all the grandchildren,” Dr. Colvin said. “She felt extremely blessed because, as she was winding down, we able to set up Facetiming calls [with the grandchildren]. And she got a chance to tell them how much she loved them and how proud she was of them … so she was in a good mood. She told one, [she was going] to see the Pearly Gates and say ‘hello’ to the Lord. So she was at peace.”
Dr. Colvin said he found a measure of peace as well. “As I was going through that period of reflecting on the finality of my mom passing, I was overjoyed,” he said. “I felt like I was a blessed young man, blessed son, blessed child in the world. Then I began to thank the Lord and of Him blessing me with such a wonderful and caring mother.”
