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Young people think Rosa Parks just sat down on a bus and ended segregation, but that wasn’t the case at all.

Claudette Colvin

As long as white people put people of color, African Americans and Latinos, in the same dispensable bag, and look at our children of color as insignificant and treat women of color as not as deserving of protection as white women, we will never achieve true equality.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Achievement Children Equality Person Protection True White
A lot of African American women wanted to emulate white women. But I said in my mind, rationally thinking, there is no way you are going to get your hair that straight, especially in the summer.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Hairs Myself Women
When you’ve been abused daily and you see people humiliated and harassed, you just get tired of it.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Humility People Yourself
The light-skinned girls always thought they were better looking. So did the teachers, too. That meant most of the dark complexion ones didn’t like themselves.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Darkness People Skin
I’ve always told my children that once they go out into the world, they must have two heads and two minds: one to keep grounded, the other to deal with corporate America.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Children Deal Myself World
That was worse than stealing, you know, talking back to a white person.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Person Talk White Worst
I left the South in 1963 and was living in Morristown, New Jersey, when the March on Washington took place, so I watched it on television instead.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Live Myself Place
I’d like my grandchildren to be able to see that their grandmother stood up for something, a long time ago.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Family Myself See
When I told my mother I was pregnant, I thought she was going to have a heart attack.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Heart Mom Myself Pregnant
There were many African Americans – many, many stories similar to my story.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Myself Race Story
What do we have to do to make God love us?’ I always grew up with that. I always used to go around thinking that. ‘God loved the white people better. He must’ve. That’s why he made them white.’
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

God Grow Up Love People White
I lost most of my friends. Their parents had told them to stay away from me, because they said I was crazy, I was an extremist.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Crazy Friendship Lost Myself
Being dragged off that bus was worth it just to see Barack Obama become president, because so many others gave their lives and didn’t get to see it, and I thank God for letting me see it.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

God Live Thankful Worth
I always tell young people to hold on to their dreams. And sometimes you have to stand up for what you think is right even if you have to stand alone.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Dream Myself People Right Thinking Young
I was about four years old the first time I ever saw what happened when you acted up to whites.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Act Myself Time White
There was segregation everywhere. The churches, buses and schools were all segregated and you couldn’t even go into the same restaurants.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Oppression Yourself

Young people think Rosa Parks just sat down on a bus and ended segregation, but that wasn’t the case at all.

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Young people think Rosa Parks just sat down on a bus and ended segregation, but that wasn’t the case at all.

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Popular Authors

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