There were many African Americans – many, many stories similar to my story.
CLAUDETTE COLVINThere were many African Americans – many, many stories similar to my story.
CLAUDETTE COLVINI 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 COLVINYoung people think Rosa Parks just sat down on a bus and ended segregation, but that wasn’t the case at all.
CLAUDETTE COLVINThe 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 COLVINNew York is a completely different culture to Montgomery, Alabama.
CLAUDETTE COLVINWe were churchgoing people.
CLAUDETTE COLVINWhen you’ve been abused daily and you see people humiliated and harassed, you just get tired of it.
CLAUDETTE COLVINRosa Parks wasn’t the first one to rebel against the segregated seats. I was the first one.
CLAUDETTE COLVINAs 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 COLVINI 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 COLVINI’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 COLVINI 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 COLVINI was about four years old the first time I ever saw what happened when you acted up to whites.
CLAUDETTE COLVINFor 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 COLVINI 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 COLVINI was ostracized by my community.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN