Claudette Colvin, a pioneering figure in the US civil rights movement whose refusal to give up her bus seat helped challenge racial segregation, has died at the age of 86, this on January 13. Colvin was just 15 when in 1955 she was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, for defying segregation laws on public transportation.
Her protest came nine months before Rosa Parks’ more widely known act of resistance and later became part of the legal challenge that led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling ending bus segregation. Colvin’s role remained largely overlooked for decades, gaining broader recognition only after the publication of a book about her life and activism in 2009.
Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. might be the first names that come to mind when thinking of the civil rights movement, in which African Americans fought for equality during the 1950s, '60s, and beyond. But there are many other figures whose names we should know—people from the past and present who have made it their priority to fight for the freedom of all Black Americans. If you'd like to improve your history knowledge, click through this gallery to learn the names of civil rights icons you should know.