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When you’ve been abused daily and you see people humiliated and harassed, you just get tired of it.

Claudette Colvin

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
I was ostracized by my community.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Community Myself Oppression
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 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.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Crazy Friendship Lost Myself
We were churchgoing people.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

People Religious
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.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Dream Myself People Right Thinking Young
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
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.’
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

God Grow Up Love People White
That was worse than stealing, you know, talking back to a white person.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Person Talk White Worst
I sleep when the sleep comes down on me.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Myself Sleep
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
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
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 never swore when I was young.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Myself Young

When you’ve been abused daily and you see people humiliated and harassed, you just get tired of it.

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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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Popular Authors

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