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Claudette Colvin (born September 5, 1939) is a pioneer of the African-American Civil Rights Movement. On March 2, 1955, she was the first person arrested for resisting bus segregation in Montgomery, Alabama, preceding the more publicized Rosa Parks incident by nine months.

Colvin was among the five plaintiffs originally included in the federal court case, filed on February 1, 1956 as Browder v. Gayle, and testified before the three-judge panel that heard the case in the United States District Court. On June 13, 1956, the judges determined that the state and local laws requiring bus segregation in Alabama were unconstitutional. The case went to the United States Supreme Court, which upheld their ruling on December 17, 1956. She was the last witness to testify and was considered the "star" witness. Three days later, the Supreme Court issued an order to Montgomery and the state to end bus segregation in Alabama.

For a long time, Montgomery's black leaders did not publicize Colvin's pioneering effort because she was a teenager and became pregnant while unmarried. Given the social norms of the time and her youth, the NAACP leaders worried about using her to represent their movement.[1][2]

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I thought the first girl was a much younger unwed mother, so they figured she wouldn't get the sympathy that the older black grandmotherly type would.

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When asked why she is little known and why everyone thinks only of Rosa Parks, Colvin says the NAACP and all the other black organizations felt Parks would be a good icon because "she was an adult. They didn't think teenagers would be reliable."

She also says Parks had the right hair and the right look.

"Her skin texture was the kind that people associate with the middle class," says Colvin. "She fit that profile."