Claudette Colvin, a pivotal but often overlooked figure in the US civil rights movement, has died at the age of 86 in Texas. On March 2, 1955, nine months before Rosa Parks's iconic protest, the 15-year-old Colvin was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to surrender her bus seat to a white woman, an act that violated segregation laws. Her defiance led to her imprisonment and later made her one of four plaintiffs in a lawsuit that successfully challenged segregated bus seating across the US. While her courageous stand helped lay the groundwork for the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the broader civil rights movement, her contribution has historically been overshadowed by Parks's more widely recognized actions.