Young people think Rosa Parks just sat down on a bus and ended segregation, but that wasn’t the case at all.
CLAUDETTE COLVINWhen you’ve been abused daily and you see people humiliated and harassed, you just get tired of it.
More Claudette Colvin Quotes
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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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That was worse than stealing, you know, talking back to a white person.
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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 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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New York is a completely different culture to Montgomery, Alabama.
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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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Rosa Parks wasn’t the first one to rebel against the segregated seats. I was the first one.
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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 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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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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When you’ve been abused daily and you see people humiliated and harassed, you just get tired of it.
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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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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