US civil rights activist who as a schoolgirl protested against segregation on Alabama’s buses US civil rights activist who as a schoolgirl protested against segregation on Alabama’s buses Although she was a pivotal figure in the US civil rights movement, Claudette Colvin, who has died aged 86, never received the full recognition she deserved for her courageous and groundbreaking protest against segregation. On 2 March 1955 Colvin, aged 15, was riding a bus home from school in Montgomery,