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I was about four years old the first time I ever saw what happened when you acted up to whites.

Claudette Colvin

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 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
There were many African Americans – many, many stories similar to my story.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Myself Race Story
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’d like my grandchildren to be able to see that their grandmother stood up for something, a long time ago.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Family Myself See
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
I sleep when the sleep comes down on me.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Myself Sleep
When I told my mother I was pregnant, I thought she was going to have a heart attack.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Heart Mom Myself Pregnant
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
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
When our founding fathers drafted the Constitution and Bill of Rights, black people weren’t even considered human.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Father Human Ourselves People
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.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

God Live Thankful Worth
I was ostracized by my community.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Community Myself Oppression
That was worse than stealing, you know, talking back to a white person.
CLAUDETTE COLVIN

Person Talk White Worst
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
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 was about four years old the first time I ever saw what happened when you acted up to whites.

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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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