In his first speech to the group as its president, he said: ‘We have no alternative but to protest. Martin Luther King, Jr was a pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.Īfter Rosa Parks had refused to give up her seat to a white person and was arrested for it, just like Claudette Colvin, the city’s civil rights leaders boycotted the transit system and chose King as their leader. The Montgomery bus boycott sparked a decade of change that led to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which desegregated public accommodations and outlawed discrimination in publicly owned facilities, as well as in employment. Her first son Raymond was born in March 1956, when she was 16. It was rumoured the father was a prominent white man in the community, Elliot Klein, who sympathised with the African-American civil rights movement.

'It will inspire them to make the world better.'Ĭolvin never married but had two sons. 'When I think about why I'm seeking to have my name cleared by the state it is because I believe it would show the generation growing up now that progress is possible. 'It will mean something for other black children. Having my records expunged will mean something to my grandchildren and great-grandchildren. More than half a century later, Colvin is hoping to clear her name and get her conviction quashed. A civil rights pioneer who was arrested aged 15 for refusing to give up her bus seat, nine months before the case of Rosa Parks, is fighting to get her record cleared so she can set a good example to her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.Ĭlaudette Colvin, 82, was arrested on Maand charged with two counts of violating Alabama's segregation ordinance and one felony count of assaulting a police officer after she refused to give up her seat to a white person on a bus in Montgomery.

Claudette colvin and rosa parks