Jeremiah Reeves, who played drums at the school, was convicted of rape in 1952 and sentenced to death. His case inspired Claudette Colvin, a 15-year-old student who, on her way home from school on March 2, 1955, refused to give her seat in the "white" section of a bus to a white woman nine months before Rosa Parks' more widely known protest. Colvin was handcuffed, arrested, and convicted. Attorney Fred Gray then won her appeals in the Browder v. Gayle case which, in November, 1956, resulted in the United States Supreme Court decision ending legal segregation on buses in the United States. Colvin was involved in a youth NAACP organization at the school, and her most influential teacher there was Geraldine Nesbitt. Rosa Parks attended the private Montgomery Industrial School for Girls in Montgomery.
