In December 1955, Colvin gave birth to a son, Raymond. He was so light-skinned (like his father) that people frequently said his father was a white man. Colvin left Montgomery for New York in 1958,[11] because she had difficulty finding and keeping work after the notoriety of the federal court case overturning bus segregation. (Similarly, Parks left Montgomery for Detroit in 1957.)[17] Colvin said that, after her actions on the bus, she was branded a troublemaker by those in her community, and had to drop out of college.[18]

In New York, the young Colvin and Raymond first lived with her older sister, Velma Colvin. She got a job as a nurse’s aide in a nursing home in Manhattan, where she worked for 35 years. She retired in 2004.[1] Colvin never