When you’ve been abused daily and you see people humiliated and harassed, you just get tired of it.
CLAUDETTE COLVINI 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.
More Claudette Colvin Quotes
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I never swore when I was young.
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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.
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We were churchgoing people.
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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.’
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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.
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When I told my mother I was pregnant, I thought she was going to have a heart attack.
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I wanted to be an attorney. My mother would say I never stopped talking. I always had a lot of questions to ask, and I was never satisfied with the answer. A lot of things I wasn’t satisfied by.
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There was segregation everywhere. The churches, buses and schools were all segregated and you couldn’t even go into the same restaurants.
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I’d like my grandchildren to be able to see that their grandmother stood up for something, a long time ago.
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When our founding fathers drafted the Constitution and Bill of Rights, black people weren’t even considered human.
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For African-Americans, it’s still going to be – some people say double hard – I’d say four times as hard. Be an opportunist. Take advantage of your resources, because the only way to win is with education, self-esteem, having value in yourself.
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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.
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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.
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There were many African Americans – many, many stories similar to my story.
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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