About

Claudette Colvin was born September 5, 1939, in Birmingham, Alabama. Her biological parents are C.P. Austin and Mary Jane Austin (Gadson). She is the oldest of eight sisters.

During her early childhood, her adopted parents and biological great aunt and uncle, Q.P. andMary Ann Colvin, lived in the rural community of Pine Level, Alabama which was the same town where Rosa Parks grew up. Claudette attended Springhill Baptist Elementary School – then located on Ramer Route 1.

She later moved to Montgomery, Alabama and lived in an area called King Hill. She attended Booker T. Washington School from 1949 to 1956. She did not finish her senior year, but later received her G.E.D. She attended the Alabama State Teachers College in Montgomery for one year.

At the age of fifteen, what would later be known as her greatest achievement in life was her significant role in desegregating the buses in Montgomery, Alabama. Claudette is one of the unsung heroes in the Civil Rights Movement. Nine months before Rosa Parks’ arrest, Claudette was arrested on March 2, 1955, for a similar act of resistance when she refused to give up her seat to a white woman. She was one of the four plaintiffs in the first federal court case filed by Fred Gray on February 1, 1956 to challenge bus segregation in the city. The case was successful, and it was a jubilant day in the history of the city of Montgomery as the state andlocal laws requiring bus segregation in Alabama were ruled unconstitutional. While this case was a success, the record of her arrest and adjudication of delinquency was not expunged by the district court until December 2021.

As early as 1979, Claudette’s name started surfacing during Negro History Month. The Birmingham News did a feature story by Frank Sikora in 1980. New York Governor Mario M. Cuomo awarded her with the MLK, Jr. Medal of Freedom in 1990, New York State’s highest honor of recognition for those individuals of outstanding accomplishments in the field of civil and human rights. The Selma Times Journal featured her in 1991; The National Voting Rights Museum and Institute added a picture display of Claudette in 1994. There was a one-minute flash of her story on Lifetime Television in 1995. Claudette was featured in the cover story of USA Today on November 25, 1995; the Montgomery Advertiser in 1996; and the Washington Post on April 12, 1990. She has been mentioned in several books such as “Freedom’s Children” by Ellen Levine, “Parting the Waters” by Taylor Branch, “Bus Ride to Justice” by Atty. Fred D. Gray, “The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It: The Memoir of Jo Ann Gibson Robinson,” to name a few. Phillip Hoose’s 2009 biography, Claudette Colvin, Twice Toward Justice, received the Newberry Honor Book Award.

Claudette worked for 30 years at a Catholic Nursing Home as a nursing assistant. She is the mother of two boys – the eldest sadly passed in her home in 1993. The youngest earned his Doctor of Business Administration from Georgia State University and is now an Assistant Professor at Texas A&M University-Kingsville. She has five adorable grandchildren and seven great grandchildren. She can say that she has reaped the fruits of her labor through them.

Claudette’s rising prominence in civil rights history has resulted in honors and awards locally, nationally, and internationally. Students from elementary through college have been inspired by the courageous actions she took as a fifteen-year-old. Parents, community leaders, and civic and public officials have been empowered to become change agents because of her example. Claudette’s legacy stands the test of time and her dauntless actions are crucial today. As she fiercely said: “When it comes to justice, there is no easy way to get it. You can't sugarcoat it. You have to take a stand and say, 'This is not right.'”

Claudette Colvin Awards and Recognitions:

• First recipient of Be The Light’s 2019 Award for Social Justice – Congregation Kol Ami, White Plains, NY

• Resolution presented by New York State Senator Shelley Mayer, District 37 in 2019

• 2019 Frederick Douglas Haynes III Justice Walk of Fame Honoree – Dallas, TX

• Honored by a Replica Brick Paver Commemorating Alabama State University Band Project in 2019

• Guest Honoree during the Equal Justice Initiative Peace and Justice Opening and featured in the Legacy Museum – Montgomery, Alabama 2018

• Featured in the Seventh Edition of the 2017 Alabama African American History Calendar sponsored by the Alabama State Department of Education – Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and AT&T

• Resolution presented by Rep. Crowley honoring Claudette Colvin at the Albany State Capitol in 2016

• Recognized by the Peterborough Community Theater, Mariposa Museum & World Culture and Public Television’s World Channel in 2016

• Guest panelist during the March on Washington Film Festival Produced by the Raben Group – Washington, D.C. 2015

• Guest speaker along with Atty. Fred Gray at Oklahoma Christian University Celebrating the 60th Anniversary of the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 2015

• City of Montgomery Office of the Mayor Proclamation and Street Renaming Ceremony in The King Hill Neighborhood in 2010

• Keepers of the Village Honoree 2010 Rainbow Push 39th Annual Conference – Chicago, Illinois

• Featured in the 381 Days: The Montgomery Bus Boycott Story Traveling Exhibition Dates 2005-2009, Smithsonian Institute

• Alabama House of Representative John Knight Resolution honoring Claudette Colvin 70th Birthday in 2009

• City of Birmingham Resolution presented by City Councilwoman Carole Smitherman recognizing her as a pioneer and unheralded heroine in 2009

• Book entitled Claudette Colvin: Twice Towards Justice by Phillip Hoose is in its second print – published in 2009

• “Claudette Colvin: An Unsung Hero in the Montgomery Bus Boycott,” featured article in Jet Magazine in 2005

• Recognized during the Ignitors of the Flame: Pioneers in the Struggle 40th Anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery march – Freedom Flame Awards Dinner, 2005

• Women of SCLC MLK Drum Major for Peace and Justice Award in 1996

• Chelsea Clinton included Ms. Colvin in her children’s book entitled She Persisted

• Ms. Colvin is featured in the Selma Voting Rights Museum; the National Civil Rights Museum, Memphis, TN; Troy University Rosa Parks Library and Museum; the Birmingham Civil Rights Museum; to name a few

• School recognition from the Success Academy Harlem, North Central, P368K Brooklyn, NY, JHS 227 in Bensonhurt, to name a few