I was about four years old the first time I ever saw what happened when you acted up to whites.
CLAUDETTE COLVINI’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.
More Claudette Colvin Quotes
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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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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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I was ostracized by my community.
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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.
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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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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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Rosa Parks wasn’t the first one to rebel against the segregated seats. I was the first one.
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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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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.
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I never swore when I was young.
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New York is a completely different culture to Montgomery, Alabama.
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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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There were many African Americans – many, many stories similar to my story.
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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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I sleep when the sleep comes down on me.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN







