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 COLVINI never swore when I was young.
More Claudette Colvin Quotes
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I was about four years old the first time I ever saw what happened when you acted up to whites.
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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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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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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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Rosa Parks wasn’t the first one to rebel against the segregated seats. I was the first one.
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I never swore when I was young.
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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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A lot has changed since I grew up, but there’s still a long way to go. I don’t think we can move forward with Donald Trump as the president. There’s a disconnect there. We don’t want to regress, we want progress.
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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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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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New York is a completely different culture to Montgomery, Alabama.
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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 sleep when the sleep comes down on me.
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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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