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 COLVINYoung people think Rosa Parks just sat down on a bus and ended segregation, but that wasn’t the case at all.
More Claudette Colvin Quotes
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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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I was ostracized by my community.
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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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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.
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That was worse than stealing, you know, talking back to a white person.
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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’d like my grandchildren to be able to see that their grandmother stood up for something, a long time ago.
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We were churchgoing people.
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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.
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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 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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New York is a completely different culture to Montgomery, Alabama.
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I sleep when the sleep comes down on me.
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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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