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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.

Claudette Colvin

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

Oppression Yourself
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 was ostracized by my community.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

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

Myself Sleep
New York is a completely different culture to Montgomery, Alabama.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Culture Different History
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
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.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Children Deal Myself World
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.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Change Grow Up Myself Thinking
When you’ve been abused daily and you see people humiliated and harassed, you just get tired of it.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Humility People Yourself
When I told my mother I was pregnant, I thought she was going to have a heart attack.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Heart Mom Myself Pregnant
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
We were churchgoing people.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

People Religious
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 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
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

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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