Claudette Colvin, Who Refused to Give Her Bus Seat to a White Woman, Dies at 86 - The New York Times

To add to the indignity, Black riders were not allowed to occupy the same row as white riders, which meant that they had to move back even if there were empty seats next to those passengers.

That’s exactly what happened when a white woman boarded Ms. Colvin’s bus. The driver ordered Ms. Colvin and the three other Black people in her row to move. Two of them did. Ms. Colvin and another woman remained seated.

As a student, Ms. Colvin had been active in her school’s N.A.A.C.P. Youth Council, which had been considering ways to protest the city’s segregation laws. She had also been close with a classmate, Jeremiah Reeves, who had recently been caught having sex with a white woman and arrested. The woman claimed that he had raped her. (He would be convicted, sentenced to death and executed in 1958.)

Remember Claudette Colvin.