Claudette Colvin
Before Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of a bus for a white passenger, sparking the famous boycott that ended bus segregation, little Claudette Colvin had led that charge.
Colvin, a girl from Montgomery, Alabama on March 2, 1955 reportedly boarded a bus on her way home from school and sat in the middle section of the bus. She was then told to move to the back to allow white passengers to have the middle seat, she refused and was handcuffed and dragged off the bus by police.
At the time, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and other activists were actually waiting for an incident like that to challenge segregated seating on buses, but unfortunately Colvin was a pregnant and unmarried teen so they chose to wait for another case.
Nine months later, Rosa Parks, then 42 years old, had a similar experience as Colvin and was arrested as well. Today, Colvin, the first heroine and teen who started it all, is practically forgotten while Parks gets all the credit.
