black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

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.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Difficult Education Opportunity People Value Win Yourself
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
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 were many African Americans – many, many stories similar to my story.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Myself Race Story
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.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Mom Myself Satisfaction Stop
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 wanted the young African-American girls also on the bus to know that they had a right to be there, because they had paid their fare just like the white passengers.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Myself Right White Young
I became aware of how the world is and how the white establishment plays black people against each other.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Black Establishment Myself People World
Young people think Rosa Parks just sat down on a bus and ended segregation, but that wasn’t the case at all.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

End People Young
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 I told my mother I was pregnant, I thought she was going to have a heart attack.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Heart Mom Myself Pregnant
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 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 was ostracized by my community.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Community Myself Oppression
We were churchgoing people.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

People Religious
I sleep when the sleep comes down on me.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Myself Sleep

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Claudette Colvin Quotes