I sleep when the sleep comes down on me.
CLAUDETTE COLVINBeing 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.
More Claudette Colvin Quotes
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I became aware of how the world is and how the white establishment plays black people against each other.
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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 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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Rosa Parks wasn’t the first one to rebel against the segregated seats. I was the first one.
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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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That was worse than stealing, you know, talking back to a white person.
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New York is a completely different culture to Montgomery, Alabama.
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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 was about four years old the first time I ever saw what happened when you acted up to whites.
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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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I was ostracized by my community.
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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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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 never swore when I was young.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN







