Claudette Colvin refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus in 1955 — months beforeRosa Parks .- Colvin was arrested for her civil disobedience.
Claudette Colvin, the Black woman and civil rights trailblazer who refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus months before Rosa Parks, has had her Alabama court record expunged.
Montgomery County Juvenile Judge Calvin Williams ruled in November to seal and destroy Colvin's juvenile court records, according to CBS News.
Colvin was 15 at the time of her arrest on March 2, 1955, after she and three friends were asked to move to allow a white woman to sit down in their bus row.
Her friends moved, but Colvin refused. She was charged with two counts of violating Montgomery's segregation ordinance and one felony count of assaulting a police officer.
She was later convicted in a juvenile court of all three counts. However, on appeal, the segregation convictions were overturned.
Colvin was sentenced to "indefinite probation" after her conviction on the assault charge and was never informed that her probation had ended, according to CNN.
In an interview with CBS
"My name was cleared," she said. "And I'm no longer a juvenile delinquent at 82."
She burst into tears upon seeing Williams — who is also Black — join the CBS interview.
Williams apologized for her convictions and thanked her for her "courageous act."
"I want to, on behalf of myself and all of the judges in Montgomery, offer my apology for an injustice that was perpetrated upon you," Williams said during the CBS interview.
Colvin's act of civil disobedience didn't catalyze the
Parks' acts spearheaded the year-long Montgomery bus boycott, a kickstarter for the Civil Rights Movement.
In 2009, Colvin told NPR that she believed her actions were not seen as groundbreaking in the same ways as Parks' because of her darker skin complexion.
"Her skin texture was the kind that people associate with the middle class," Colvin said. "She fit that profile."