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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.

Claudette Colvin

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 COLVIN

Darkness People Skin
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
We were churchgoing people.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

People Religious
That was worse than stealing, you know, talking back to a white person.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Person Talk White Worst
When I told my mother I was pregnant, I thought she was going to have a heart attack.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Heart Mom Myself Pregnant
A lot of African American women wanted to emulate white women. But I said in my mind, rationally thinking, there is no way you are going to get your hair that straight, especially in the summer.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Hairs Myself Women
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 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
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
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
I wanted the young African-American girls also on the bus to know that they had a right to be there, because they had paid their fare just like the white passengers.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Myself Right White Young
New York is a completely different culture to Montgomery, Alabama.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Culture Different History
Rosa Parks wasn’t the first one to rebel against the segregated seats. I was the first one.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Myself Oneself Oppression Strength
I sleep when the sleep comes down on me.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Myself Sleep
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
I never swore when I was young.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Myself Young

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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There was segregation everywhere. The churches, buses and schools were all segregated and you couldn’t even go into the same restaurants.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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